


Skydancing

by Sivvus



Series: Skydancing [1]
Category: Joanne Harris - Holy Fools, PIERCE Tamora - Works, The Immortals - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Acrobatics, Actors, Arguing, Circus, Dancing, Dare, Engagement, F/M, Family Secrets, Fighting, Fluff, Forgetting, Juggling, Memories, Murder Mystery, Past Character Death, Theatre, Tightrope Walking, dangerous game, proposal, skydancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 03:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 62,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3341198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sivvus/pseuds/Sivvus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daine and Numair travel across Tortall with a group of players to investigating rumours of a coup in the remote mountains. Their simple plan is destroyed when they reach Fort Salydis and find that the mysterious Lady Salydis will only trade information for dangerous tricks… and the more deadly, the better. </p><p>Meanwhile, Numair tries to convince Daine to marry him, but neither realise how close they are to losing each other forever. D/N! Fluff, fun, jugglers and mysteries... oh my!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rope

**Author's Note:**

> Since my main Fic is rather dark at the moment, I thought it might be wise to post updates of something a bit lighter. This is a plot I've been playing with since reading "Holy Fools" by Joanne Harris, but (naturally!) I decided to write within my favourite fanbase. If you like the details of rope dancing then all credit goes to Ms. Harris' amazing research, and I totally recommend her book.

The coin fell to the floor, spinning merrily. Daine cursed. The clattering sound was almost lost under the music and chatter in the hall, but it was still conspicuous enough to be embarrassing. She didn't look up when she knelt to pick up the coin, but her voice rang out clearly.

"You can stop smirking, too. Just because you can make it look so easy."

"It really is just a matter of practice." Numair tried not to sound smug and failed. His own coin glinted as he spun it across his knuckles and then disappeared neatly into his palm. The girl pulled a face at him and sat back down, dropping her own coin on the table and watching it roll away.

"I don't think I'll get the hang of it." She said, shrugging. "It's not important. I don't need to show off."

Numair opened his mouth to retort, and then stopped when someone cleared their throat loudly. The hall was noisy, full of people who weren't quite sure why they'd been summoned there in the middle of the warm May day, and the throat-clearer sounded quite hoarse before he had their attention. He wore the uniform of a herald, but in this weather the sleeves were rolled up in a rather undignified manner.

"My Lords and Ladies, please may I have your attention?" He shouted eventually, silencing the whisperers in the corners. There were a few laughs, making him redden. "King Jonathan and Queen Thayet, in honour of the start of summer, have invited you here to see a wonderful display of acrobats, players and illusionists. They have just finished setting up their display in the palace garden. If you would accompany me..." He was drowned out by the sudden surge of chatter, laughing and the clatter of benches as people began to move towards the garden. Clutching his hat as if he would lose it in the fray, he made his way to the edge of the crowd to catch his breath.

The garden was decorated with ribbons and streamers, and a canopy had been set up under the taller apple trees that bordered it. There were chairs under it for the more refined nobles, but many of them sat on the grass, laughing and not minding the stains it would leave on their clothes. Instead of a single stage, the players had set up two, at diagonal angles to each other with one corner just touching. The space in the middle was left bare of wooden boards, and a rope was suspended above it in between two poles.

"This is unusual," Numair said, taking the scene in with a glance. "Why invite a troop here now? They're usually just here at festivals."

"Ah, you've caught me out." The cheerful voice was definitely Jonathan's, as was the rather irritating hand which slapped the mage's shoulders. Numair reminded himself that it was improper to glare at a king before you've bowed to him, and promptly did both. Jon acknowledged the greeting with a grin and nodded to Daine, then waved a vague hand at the stage. "Watch the show. When it's finished, stay here. I need to talk to you both." Just as rapidly as he'd appeared he melted back into the crowd, and then re-emerged under the canopy to sit down regally and raise a hand, indicating the players should begin.

"If he wanted to talk to us, why didn't he just... talk to us?" Daine whispered, ignoring the warning looks from the nearby crowd at the noise.

"If I had the power to get a circus to play on a whim, then I would start all my conversations like this, too." The man whispered back. Daine smiled at the idea as the performance began in earnest.

The wooden boards held mock battles, recitals of verse and melodramatic drama. Jugglers walked through the crowds, pulling apples and eggs from people's ears and making them vanish into thin air, only to reappear in someone else's belt purse. The crowd gasped as the acrobats somersaulted across the rope, and laughed at a troop of performing collies who danced around another dog who was dressed as a sheep. The pack argued over who was going to herd it, nipping at each other and leaping over each other in elaborate routines, until the sheep got tired of this and chased the entire pack from the stage. The dogs spent the second half of the performance sneaking around the garden and through the crowd until they gathered around Daine, who greeted them all and let the pack sit with them in the shade. She took the sheep costume off the last dog when it panted in the sunshine, impressed at how gently the ties held the fleece onto the collie's back. She'd seen much crueller costumes.

When the show finished, to rapturous applause, the dogs sped back onto the stage as one to take their own bow, tongues lolling. The people watching laughed, applauded again, and gradually began to leave.

"That was excellent," Numair said, climbing to his feet. Daine agreed, and then realised she was still carrying the sheep costume. When she looked around for someone to return it to, she couldn't even see the stage through the throng of people. She guessed that Jonathan would have a similar problem finding them... at least, for a while. It wasn't worth staying here, then. She shouldered the heavy fleece and set off through the crowd, calling to the dogs to ask who the costume belonged to. They helpfully called back the sheep-dog's name.  
 _  
I know that!_ She replied, _I meant: which human?_

 _It doesn't matter._ They said idly, less interested now that they could return to their own homes and sleep in the shade. Daine sighed and reached the stage, looking for the nearest free player. They all seemed to have vanished, too.

"If this is another trick," she said out loud, "It's a really annoying one."

"Tricks are but illusions, noble lady." The voice was so rich and affected that Daine had to stop herself from giggling when she turned around to see the speaker. It was one of the players who had recited in the show: a venerable man, whose beard seemed more silver than white. He peered at her narrowly, nose scrunched up as if he was near-sighted. Daine realised that he was trying to pull a cunning face when he carried on speaking, "Coins are less fleeting, wouldn't you agree?"

Daine scratched her nose awkwardly with her free hand. "So you're saying they're looking for people to pay them?"

"I would never say something so crass. However true it might be, noble lady." He added. "I'm the circus master, and I am called Grasmar. Who were you searching for?"

"Um." Daine held out the fleece, wondering if he was genuinely short sighted. "I was looking for... well, whoever this belongs to."

He waved a hand. "One of the feline costumes? Fear not, maiden, for with great alacrity will I summon the lord of the wardrobe to dispose of it!"

"Uh, _feline_ means..." 

"Making friends, Daine?" Jonathan sauntered over, hands tucked into his belt like a farmer. He grinned and gestured for Grasmar to straighten up- the circus master had descended into a bow so elaborate that parts of his costume were still dancing in the air. If anything, the player looked annoyed when he straightened up, clearly sizing up this king and finding him wanting. The line between the man's eyes vanished when Jonathan winked at him, prompting a surprised laugh.

"Your majesty," Grasmar's voice was suddenly a lot less pompous, and he ducked his head constantly as if trying to fight off the urge to bow again. "I received your communication and am here, with my friends, brothers, brethren and trusted colleagues, to respond to your most confiding command."

"Yes, er… very good." The king scratched his head briefly, looking confused. "Well, this is Miss Sarrasri, who I wrote to you about, and Master Salmalin is… somewhere." He looked around, not seeing Numair in the milling throng, and sighed. "Daine, please will you go and find him? I have to talk to Master Gletdale to confirm a few things, anyway. We'll be here."

 _Confirm what? _Daine thought. She was irritated by all this secrecy. But she didn't say anything out loud, but smiled and left. As she walked away she could hear Grasmar commenting on her shocking rudeness of not bowing to the king before leaving, and smothered a giggle. It seemed that the sort of king people paid money to watch was nothing like the real-life example!

She didn't have a clue how to find Numair, either. The crowds were slowly dispersing, so she wandered through them absent-mindedly and just waited for them to leave. The grass was slowly turning to mud underfoot, and some of the more delicate ladies were starting to complain about the state of their shoes, so it wouldn't be long before the garden was empty. She was thinking about calling the dogs to her again when raised voices pulled her from her thoughts.

There was a large pole erected behind the stage, with a rope tied securely to the top of it. When Daine followed the cord she could see that the other end was tied to another pole, which was where the arguing was coming from. Three men, practically dressed with heavy gloves protecting their hands, were arguing with a forth. This last man was slender, light, and when he moved his motions were quick and bird-like. They were arguing about the pole, gesturing to it with every other word.

"Why did you make us put it up if you weren't going to use it?" The stockiest man demanded. "Just because you stubbed your precious toes…"

"I broke two toes." The bird-like man said, his voice petulant. "I need perfect control of my feet to balance…"

"You went to the healer!" Another man cut across. "We paid half a week's beer money for you to…"

"The physical memory had not fully returned, I assure you." The bird-man sniffed and looked up at the rope. "It's a lot more difficult than you seem to think."

Daine looked up again at the rope. It was quite thick – the kind of tarred rope used to moor ships. The tarring looked stickier than normal, too, making the wide strands easier to grip. It was strung so tightly across the poles that the gusts of May-wind weren't making it move an inch. 

"It doesn't look that hard," she said to herself, and then blanched when the bird-man rounded on her. "I'm sorry…" she started, but he was already drawing himself up indignantly.

"I wouldn't expect a talentless little miss like yourself to understand just how demanding this line of work is. It looks easy enough from the ground, but when you're up there, with nothing but the sky and the ground to break your fall…"

"You use a net." One of the men muttered. The bird-man spun around to glare at him, and Daine took the chance to slip away. Her stubborn mind refused to leave the men behind, and even though she told herself she was looking for Numair, she found herself at the base of the second pole soon enough.

"I could do it." Daine murmured to herself, and then mentally shrugged. _Why not do it, then? I'll be able to see Numair from up there, after all… it's basically what Jon asked me to do…_

With that excuse firmly set in her mind, she told herself she was being sensible, and headed for the pole. There were good footholds notched into the wood, and climbing to the top was easy. She had stepped carefully onto the rope before the men at the other pole noticed and went white, shouting out to her. The girl ignored them, thinking quickly. She wouldn't delude herself that she had perfect balance, but she knew some animal forms that did. Lighter bones, more dextrous feet to grip with, primal balance…

She had to concentrate for the first few steps, getting the hang of the strange mixture of forms, and then she walked rapidly to the other post and stood easily on the top. It was only when she reached the post that she realised the world had gone quiet. The men had stopped shouting at her, and the remaining nobles were staring with gaping mouths. The bird-man looked nearly green. And there, at the bottom of the post, Numair, Jonathan and Grasmar were staring up with varying expressions of horror and amusement.

Numair broke the silence by applauding, a wide grin on his face. "Well done! It's obvious you're using magic, though. You should wobble more."

"She was using magic?" The circus master asked loudly, some colour back in his face now that the girl was on the comparatively safer post. "I didn't realise, I was afraid to look!"

Daine climbed down easily, jumping the last few feet. "Sorry. Some animals have a very good sense of balance, is all. It's a good thing to borrow. It's mostly in the ears."

"Oh." The man blinked up at the rope, and then back at her. His affected way of speaking had completely disappeared in his shock, but he tried to pull himself together. "You… Your friend is right, then. You should make sure you wobble if you're going to make a habit of it, like."

"I thought circus folk hated people using magic in their shows," Daine started, and Grasmar laughed.

"Well, we're not over-fond. But it's the audience who need to believe that we're gift-free, not the players! Any mage can make an apple vanish into a hat- poof!- but we like to show people that those without magic could do it, too. They know it's a trick, but it's clever and it makes them laugh."

"We're all here, then." Jonathan said, smiling, "Good: I can tell you the plan. Daine, Numair, this is Grasmar Gletdale, the owner of this wonderful entertainment. He's kindly agreed to let you join his troupe for the summer season."

"Why?" Both mages burst out simultaneously, utter bewilderment written on their faces. Jonathan's smile faded away, and for the first time he looked utterly serious.

"The season will take them to Fort Salydis in the northern mountains, near the Scanran border. We lost contact with the fort a few days ago. They've cut off their trade routes, stopped sending messages and have put guards on the mountain passes. Something is wrong, but I want to know what it is before we send in a whole army. You have to get in undetected. When she was at court Lady Salydis was one of the biggest patrons of the players; I hope she'll let the troupe in even if she is planning a coup."

Grasmar looked sidelong at their stricken faces and laughed.

"I hope you can juggle."


	2. Caravan

"I always said I should return to juggling for a living." Numair lounged back in his chair, long legs stretched out halfway across the empty hearth. "I didn't think it'd be so soon, though!"

"It's not just juggling." Daine found the book she was looking for and opened it, her voice absent-minded as she flicked through the pages. "What is it about these lonely castles that makes people want to rebel?"

"We don't know if they are rebelling." The man reminded her, but there was no conviction in his words. "I suppose it's for the same reason that we're so quick to assume something's wrong – we have to get over the passes, so it's hard to get messages to them, and if they've cut off their trade routes, then..."

"It's stupid. These lords decide they want to get more power, or money, and so to be secretive they cut off their supplies? It's the normal people that suffer from that. They think they're fine now, but when winter starts..." Daine sighed and looked over the top of the book, realising she was rambling. "I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Perhaps they have a good reason for doing it."

"Perhaps." Numair echoed, and then shrugged, "But I can't think of one. Can you?"

"I guess we'll find out when we get there!" The words got brighter as the girl caught sight of a page and grinned in triumph. "Perfect: Margays!"

Numair blinked and then glanced over at the spine for the title: Camena Feline. "I guess that's a species of cat."

She nodded and shut the book, smiling. "Yes, they're tree cats, so they're better at climbing than most other cats. And I met one a few years ago, when the Banjiku were here for the solstice- remember? I just have to remember what they feel like. Then I'll only have to remember one shape, not ten, and I likely won't fall off that rope."

"You're taking this very seriously, aren't you?" Numair's voice was teasing, but there was a genuine question behind the light words. He stood up and caught her hand as she returned the book to the shelf. "You know you don't have to do it? We'd get into the castle just as easily by building the stage as we would by performing on it."

"But then why would the nobles speak to us? We have to be good enough to impress them." Daine said seriously, and then grinned, "Besides, this is going to be fun. You can't tell me you don't like the idea of finally being able to show off all those tricks."

"I show them to you! Are they so forgettable?" He mimed a tragic display of woe, making the girl laugh.

"I meant to people who matter."

"You matter." Numair grinned when Daine blushed, and then tried to cover her sudden shyness with a cutting retort.

"You know that's not what I meant! They'll be different. They'll watch you because they love your tricks; I watch your tricks because I love _you."_

"Surely that just means you matter more?"

Daine sighed and looked up, seeing that his eyes were dancing merrily. "I'm not going to win this argument, am I?"

"Did you want to?" He asked. The girl shrugged and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek, then pulled away quickly when he tried to kiss her back, her own eyes mischievous.

"I was trying to pay you a compliment, you dolt." She said matter-of-factly. "I thought you'd want me to win!"

"I think I'd better let you!" The man laughed, "If I've already been demoted from a trickster to a dolt, I dread to think what's next! Fine, magelet, I take it back. You don't matter at _all._ We live together because it's practical, work together because no-one else would tolerate us, and sleep together for warmth."

"Very true." Daine kept her voice solemn even as she slid her arms around Numair's back. She shivered when he did the same, running his fingers lightly down her spine, and the involuntary movement made him laugh.

"Are you cold, sweetling?"

"Frozen." She drew him closer. "Remind me, what is it we do for warmth?"

He smiled crookedly. "We're supposed to be packing…" he started, and then gave up that train of thought to kiss the side of her neck, murmuring warmly into her ear, "Ah, we have all night to pack. Who knows when I'll have you to myself again?"

"Don't the players spend their lives on the road?" Daine asked, surprised, "I thought they'd have their own ways of being private."

"The players do, but I don't think we will." Numair tapped the end of her nose playfully. "They'll be curious. How many new animals do you think will be following you by the end of the first hour, magelet?"

She reddened, even though she knew he was teasing her, there was some truth in it. "I can ask them not to, you know that."

"Or turn it into some sort of trick?" He grinned impishly, "'The girl who dreams of wolves, and wakes up surrounded by their snoring puppies'."

Daine laughed. "Well, that won't happen, I promise. You're right, it'd be too hard to explain away, and besides…" she stopped and smothered another laugh at his expression. "Jonathan didn't tell you, did he?"

"Tell me what?"

"He got us one of those caravans,"

888

"And now I'm forced to wonder whether either of us has irritated our dear sovereign recently." Numair sighed, running his hand along the decaying paint and brushing the blue flakes from his sleeve. Daine secretly agreed, but checked under the cart. Even in the early dawn light she could see that the axles were sound and the wheels even.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she said, "I mean, we can fix it up as we go without much trouble. It'll get us to the North and back fairly easily."

"I guess it's simpler to carry a few tins of paint along with us than a whole new frame," the man agreed, and smiled. "Come on, let's dump our stuff in it and get to the others. Kit can guard it for a while, and Grasmar wanted to talk to us before we leave Corus."

Grasmar had a map befitting his overbearing nature: a gorgeous affair of exotic, bright inks and gilded borders. It hung in a frame, proudly showing all the routes the group hard toured on in the past. Corus was marked with a golden crown. During the show it had hung proudly from one of the wagons for the punters to admire, but now it was carelessly lying on the grass. The leader pointed to the crown, and then meandered his hand slowly North towards the mountains and Scanra. "This is the route we'll take."

"Why are we taking such a long route? Why not go directly?" Numair asked. The troupe master shook his head in mock irritation and made a point of looking the mage up and down.

"You may not realise this, but some of us have to make a living. We can't all be protecting the safety of the realm! Some of us just want to eat well over the winter."

"The king paid you," the man pointed out, and was supremely ignored. The rest of the troupe were marking out the route in charcoal, laughing and talking about the last time they were in each town. The only person who responded was the bird-man, who laughed and rolled his eyes.

"We are to perform for the Lady Salydis, not for some uncultured country dolt! If you think we would present her with a poor performance, you are much mistaken. It is kind, most kind, for our master to grant you this time with our artistes to refine your… show." He lifted his nose at the last word, smiling when the mage flushed darkly and opened his mouth to retort.

"This is the trade route, isn't it?" Daine cut in quickly, "So this is a good idea." She looked up, her eyes searching until they met Numair's. "We can ask the traders what they know about it. If we just went straight there we'd likely miss something. We're not trying to earn money, after all. What does it matter if our acts aren't refined?"

"Ah, poor ignorant child!" The bird-man trilled, and stalked off, wittering a laugh.

"I forgot how annoying players can be." Numair muttered, staring at his hands as if it was their fault they'd not slapped the man. "No wonder I left."

"Reaching Tortall without Ozorne noticing was really just a bonus, right?" Daine replied at the same volume. He shot her a look and then shrugged, smiling ruefully.

The troupe moved out with surprisingly little ceremony. A few people swung themselves onto horseback and headed up the procession, but most of the performers returned to their caravans and wagons and disappeared into the tiny homes. The roustabouts took up the reigns, clicked to the horses and moved off in procession. Most of them raised eyebrows at the new caravan as they passed it, barely hiding their smirks as they compared the weathered blue frame to their own brightly-coloured creations.

They couldn't scoff so openly at the horses, though. Although the presence of a stocky mountain pony prompted a few odd looks, the other two horses grazing nearby were obviously valuable and well cared for. Daine had asked for volunteers that morning, knowing that pulling a cart for endless weeks was a thankless task, and had plenty of choice when nearly every horse in the stable had offered to help. Summer, they said, was no hardship no matter what the excuse was to be outside. Daine set to lashing one of them to the caravan with quick, practiced movements, calling a few approving jeers from the passing drivers.

"Are you alright on your own here? I need to speak with our dear leader some more." Numair asked, one hand holding the sandy-coloured mare's reign. Daine smiled and nodded, caught up in her task, and when she thought to look around again he was near the front of the line. She climbed easily into the splintered seat at the front of the caravan. The strong chestnut mare tossed her head happily when the human called to her to set off, and once they were moving Daine thanked her again for her help.

 _It's really no bother._ The mare said dismissively, whisking a fly away with a quick flick of the tail. _Everyone knows you look after horses better than anyone. The next person wouldn't have asked nearly so nicely as you, and I'd've spent the summer lashed to a plough or some-such, sweating away my youth…_

 _Are you always this dramatic, Hanna?_ The slightly sarcastic voice could only be Cloud's, and she trotted forward to nudge the horse with her nose. _Warn me now so I can fill my ears with mud._

"Oh come on, Cloud, you're just as bad." Daine laughed, "Go ahead, but don't come crying to me when you get ear mites."

Cloud huffed and fell back into step. _I'm dramatic when there's something to be dramatic about._

The thought sobered the girl quickly. For a few minutes, sitting in the early morning sun with the cool dawn breeze on her face, she'd half-forgotten they were moving slowly towards another problem. "Don't worry," she sighed, "I'm sure there'll be plenty of that, soon enough."


	3. Lon

The rope felt warm under her bare feet, the dark tar almost too hot in the glaring afternoon sun. Daine concentrated on the heat, feeling the cool breezes which always darted through her toes, even on the most breathless days. This high up, the gasps of the people below were a distant sigh. It was just her and the rope, again, trusting each other not to fall.

It was too simple to simply walk from one end of the rope to the other, even this high up. When the players realised how steady she was on the rope, even when savage gusts of wind were tearing the pennants from the stage, they had decided to build a taller platform to draw bigger crowds. Set up in a town square, the brightly-painted poles could be seen from farms and hamlets for miles around. They came, gaping in mock fear, to stare at the girl who dared to climb so close to the gods. And, of course, that meant that climbing was not enough.

Daine bit her lip and made sure that the fluttering gauze of her wings was caught up in the breeze, and not underfoot. She could be careful now, before she began, making sure that she wouldn't trip. She checked the thin white cord which was wrapped around one wrist, making sure it was tied securely and that the other end was fixed to the platform. From below it was invisible, but the bird-man had tersely informed her that the fragile-looking twine had saved more lives than it had betrayed. The music started below her, and she raised her arms as the crowd hushed.

It wasn't dancing, not really. On the ground it would look like nothing. But up here, every half-step drew a gasp. Every frozen pose could betray a deadly tremor. When she jumped and landed lightly back on the platform she could hear women screaming. Sometimes she caught sight of them fainting out of the corner of her eye, and had to struggle not to laugh. Her balance was good, sure, but laughing would just as surely bring her crashing down.

Sometimes, too, she spotted Numair watching her, his eyes inscrutable. He never said anything to her when she climbed down, not any more. For the first few weeks he'd laughed and made jokes, but after she'd agreed to have the platform raised he'd quietly asked again why she was taking the performance so seriously. She'd repeated her reason: it gave them an excuse to talk to people.

They didn't even have to seek out gossip on the trade route; the townspeople flocked to speak to them. They were just as much in awe of the man who could make eggs vanish and reappear as strangely-tame starlings, before clapping together two empty hands and opening them with handfuls of beads spilling between his fingertips. Even some of the players begged him for his secrets. People spoke to them in droves.

"And they send word ahead," Daine pointed out, "So by the time we get to Fort Salydis they'll have heard of us. Hopefully they'll be curious enough to let us through the borders without asking too many questions."

"Yes." Numair shook his head distractedly, "I mean, no… do you enjoy it?"

"It's fun." Daine admitted. "They're so… I hardly have to do anything, but they still scream, and clap, like I learned all two hundred words of one of Grasmar's plays. I feel bad about that. He's working much harder, but they clap less."

"That's because they know he won't die if he makes a mistake."

"You think I'm going to fall?" Daine tried to cover her irritation with a laugh. "Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I do!" Numair realised that his voice was loud enough to carry through the thin walls of their caravan. He made an effort to speak more calmly. "But even cats fall sometimes, and you don't need to take risks until…"

"Neither do you. Should I lecture you now, or do I wait until one of the nobles catches you picking their pocket for trinkets for your tricks? Getting your thumbs cut off for thieving will surely help us!" Daine didn't bother keeping her voice down, and the words were more scathing than she had intended. The man reddened.

"I don't get caught." He said stiffly.

"Then, I don't fall." Daine snatched up a pile of tack that was waiting to be cleaned and left before either of them could say another word. The other players welcomed her to the large communal fire with cheerful voices, and by the time she returned she had almost forgotten she had been angry. She hesitated for a moment before pushing the door open, wondering if Numair might still be mad, but when she looked inside he was sleeping. One hand pillowed his head while the other one held a book open at the page he'd been reading when he nodded off. The familiar sight made her smile.

 _He was just worried._ She thought, with the guilty clarity that comes after an argument. _I hate it when he lectures me, but he could never help being protective of me. I guess he can't protect me from myself, is all._

The next day, she calmly told Grasmar that she would only climb the higher platform if she could wear a safety rope around her wrist. The circus master shrugged, clearly thinking the thin cord was about as useful as a fireplace made of ice, but didn't object. She didn't mention the deal to Numair, and if he noticed then he didn't say anything. To the Daine who danced in the sky, he became a distant pair of eyes: eyes that watched silently and kept their own counsel. When she climbed down, and stripped the cumbersome gauze wings from her back, she was simply Daine again, and everything was the way it had always been.

She stopped on the platform, hearing the scattered applause below her, and raised her arms towards the cooling breeze.

888

The stories from the traders began to get interesting as they neared the first mountain pass. They had to travel through three before they reached the valley which enclosed the Salydis lands. The locals told curious people that the valleys had once been a great river, frozen for hundreds of years, then melting and dwindling down into the river Lydis which nurtured the fields. In the winter the river swelled and froze again, a shadow of its formal glacial magnificence, and only showing its beauty to the lucky souls sealed into each valley by the mountain snows.

And what of Fort Salydis? It wasn't a glacier that had sealed off that valley!

Well no, the traders said, their voices uncertain as they glanced at each other. No, not the glacier, but…

And then the stories began. A thousand rumours, each more absurd than the last. There was a disease, a plague, or at least everyone had caught cold. There was a rockslide that cut off the route. The river had burst its banks and they were all too busy building boats to trade. All the women had grown ugly overnight and the men were distracted trying to remember which one was their wife and which one was their mother-in-law.

"So basically, you're telling us that no-one really knows." Numair said after that particular gem of a story. The traders shrugged and turned back to their ale, still trading comments about how certain people wouldn't notice any change if their wife was hit by that curse. They might mutter under their breath about the loss of coppers from the furthest reaches, but Salydis was so remote that most of them were happy enough to be turned away from the passes.

"By guards? Soldiers?" Daine pressed them, and bit her lip when they all shook their heads. Not soldiers, or at least, not all soldiers. Mostly farmers, miners… you know, just people. They were very polite and friendly, but they couldn't be reasoned with. A pitchfork is just as painful as a sword if you stick it in the right place… begging your pardon, little miss.

"It's strange." Numair said later that night, speaking in the low voice it was impossible to hear outside of the wooden walls. They'd both perfected it in the past few weeks, saving any serious discussion for the late hours when they were less likely to be overheard. A few of the other players wandered in and out of other people's caravans at will, acting offended if they were caught prying through other people's belongings. Secrets were seen as common property by such people. "If the passes were being sealed off for some kind of military reason, then surely they would be defended by soldiers, not by serfs."

"We keep thinking it has to be a coup," Daine's voice was slow as she thought, "But you're right, it doesn't make sense. I'm starting to think that maybe it is something else."

"Perhaps it's the ugly curse," Numair said lightly, linking his hands between his head and smirking when she pulled a face at him. "See, it's already working on you!"

"We'll find out in a few weeks, anyway." The girl said, ignoring him. "I'm glad; this mystery is driving me mad!"

In fact, it was only a few days before they saw the hulking shadow of Fort Salydis at the top of one of the cliffs. The rest of the players laughed at their surprise and explained that the mountain trail looped around for many more miles before it even got to the outskirts of the tithed lands. But for those miles, like a lurking creature, the fort looked down on the trail. It clung to the side of the mountain like a limpet, stretching out claws of stone which stabbed deeply into the cliff face. It was hard to tell where the natural rock ended and the castle began, and whether the gaping maws in the mountain were windows or caves.

"The tunnels stretch for miles," Grasmar said, his voice awed. "I've heard they've found the bodies of people who got lost, years and years ago, and starved to death." His voice took on the darker tone that he used to tell frightening stories in the plays. "All that's left is a shrivelled, dried up husk, their faces stretched into one last, silent scream. If you listen closely, you can still hear their cries echoing through those ancient caverns."

Daine shivered and pretended it was from a cold gust of wind creeping up to the fire. "Is the castle that old?"

"Ancient." One of the other women cut in, her voice hushed. "It was a temple, or a crypt, or just a series of caves the priests of the oldest gods used to use, and when one of the old kings gave the land to a fledgling lord they just kept building on top of it. They say that even the Lady Salydis doesn't know all of its secrets, and she used to explore it with a ball of twine when she was newlywed. She went for miles and miles, and couldn't find an end to it…"

"The modern part's quite nice, though." The new voice sounded bored, matter-of-fact: "They built a new hall a few years ago. I hear they have proper glass windows."

"Spoil sport." The woman muttered. The bored man raised an eyebrow, the firelight catching the shadows around his eye sockets.

"Oh sorry… um, fear and dread, perilous mortals, the endless, tiring and boring climb all the way up to that bloody building for one show! 'Tis truly a thing of horror!"

"Eh, you're no fun." The woman turned away, then yawned and whistled to one of the dogs lounging near the fire. It sprang up with a comical expression before it woke up enough to realise it wasn't supposed to be performing, and then looked sulky. The woman smirked at it, and bid everyone goodnight.

"You've all been there before, then." Daine remarked. The players nodded, with a few shrugs thrown in. The ones who hadn't said they knew the lady from other castles, as she used to go out of her way to see travelling players when she was younger. They all had a memory of her, they said, but not of her castle.

"It doesn't suit her, that old tomb." One of the female tumblers said, "You could tell she grew up in a place with a big garden, lots of flowers. Sweet little thing, she was. I can't imagine her rotting up there when she could have stayed in Castle Lon."

"Lon?" Numair asked abruptly, looking up. "Did you say she's from Lon?" When they nodded, he pressed further, his face stricken. "What's her first name?"

"Idama. She was Idama Lon, and then she married lord Salydis to be Idama Salydis. When he died she kept the name." The players all nodded around the fire, happy to be able to talk about their patron. Daine was about to ask Numair what was wrong before he abruptly stood up and left, running a hand through his hair in agitation. The player's eyes all flicked to Daine, and she forced herself not to look worried.  
"He's had a headache all evening; I'm fair sure he's seeking out some willow bark." She said flippantly, and then waved a hand. "Not that he'll know where to look! Goodnight, everyone."

She had to follow his tracks, but finally spotted Numair climbing up one of the sheep-trails on the mountain, following the random path absentmindedly. The girl guessed he was trying to clear his head, and hesitated before following him. Two things decided her. The first was that, even if it was a secret, it was about the Lady, so it was obviously important. The second was the worrying low silvery buzz which hummed in the corner of her mind, warning her that immortals were lurking somewhere nearby. She'd known the mage to get so caught up in his thoughts he'd forgotten to eat for days; she didn't trust him not to wander into something's nest in this mood.

After about a mile the buzzing faded, and she realised the immortals had moved away. She breathed a sigh of relief, stringing her bow back around her shoulders. They'd spoken about the creatures, worrying that a large attack might force them to betray that they were both trained fighters. But the immortals seemed to be in the habit of keeping away from the trade route; the other players guessed that they'd been shot at so many times by traders and travellers that they were wary of it. She was glad that this also seemed to apply to the trail. It was getting dark, the velvety blackness of a nearly moonless night, and she was thinking about shaping her eyes into those of a cat when suddenly a mage-light lit the sky in front of her. She blinked and shielded her eyes, and heard a quiet laugh.

"I know you're following me, Daine. Come and sit with me."

"You knew I was here?" She echoed, feeling foolish. When the spots cleared from her eyes she started walking towards the light.

"Well, I guessed. Even if I'd just shouted that out to the night sky, who would hear me to argue?" The words were joking, but he sounded as if he was struggling to be cheerful. When she sat down next to him on the crest of the cliff he barely smiled a greeting, but linked his arm through her own without a word. She waited without saying anything, thinking instead about the long drop under their feet, and the cold night air rushing up from the valley floor, and the comforting warmth of being this close to him. It was a long time before he started speaking, but when he did she felt suddenly cold again.

"I know Idama." He said eventually, the words flat. "I knew her when she was Idama, and not this Lady Salydis they're all so enamoured of. I met her in Lon when I was still running from Ozorne."

"So?" Daine was confused, "She knew you as a player, not as a mage. She'll just think you never stopped."

"No, sweetheart, you don't understand. I didn't… she didn't know me as a player. She had a sister, you see. Emma. She was older than Idama- she was nineteen, Idama was only ten. We stayed in Lon for two weeks, for the Beltane fair, and for the first week I saw her watching every single show we did. When we lit the Beltane fires, Emma made sure that I was the one she danced with."

He stopped speaking abruptly, kicking his feet against the cliff. Daine was half-glad of that; she told herself she didn't care about Numair's old lovers, but it was much easier to do that when they were a vague series of faceless women. When she heard their names she had to remind herself not to get jealous. It was truly strange to be so close to someone that she could feel every beat of their heart, and yet hear them talking about another person. She figured he wouldn't be telling her all this without a good reason, and forced herself to listen.

"For the next week we were nearly inseparable. But every time Idama saw us together, she would scream and throw things at me for… well, she said I was taking her sister away from her. Emma tried to laugh it off but she was torn by it. When my troupe left at the end of the week it wasn't too difficult for us to part ways.

'But the way Idama acted… on the outside she was sweet as honey, so polite and good natured, but behind closed doors she'd bite her skin on purpose to make it bleed, and tear her hair out, because she knew it punished her sister to see her hurt. Even tiny offences, like if she wanted a piece of fruit Emma was eating, would make her act like that. And you could see it in Emma's eyes. She loved her sister, but she was so hurt by it, and the few times she wrote to me, she said that Idama was getting worse. I couldn't bear to think what that meant. And then there were no letters, no word from Lon. I asked around, to try to find out what had happened."

"Tell me," Daine whispered, her mind reeling. Numair swallowed, his voice cracking.

"She killed herself. She jumped from the watchtower in the middle of the night. They found her the next morning."

"I'm so sorry." The girl reached out and took his hand, surprised by how sad she felt at this death of someone she'd never known. He squeezed her hand back, wordless, and she had to ask, "Why have you never told me this before?"

He laughed dryly. "It's not something I like to think about. But I do, sometimes. When it wakes me up, and I can't help but wonder... Daine, I think that this job is going to be more difficult than we'd hoped."  
"Well, if she's crazy… but surely the players would have noticed…"

"No, not that. She's not crazy, she manipulates people. But that's not what I'm worried about. I think… I've always wondered…" He stopped himself and rubbed between his eyes, focusing his thoughts, and when he spoke again his voice was determined. "No. The problem is that, for a week, Emma shared every thought she had with me. And Idama knows that. I'm probably the only other person in the world who knows that Emma would never kill herself. I think that she was pushed."


	4. By Command

The guards rubbed their eyes but didn't make an effort to stand up straight, lounging on the half-rotten wooden posts that marked the start of the stone bridge over the Lydis. The players walked towards them with open palms held upwards, their postures jovial rather than wary. The effect was spoiled slightly by the strong gusts of wind that blew through the thin mountain pass. When they neared the bridge a particularly heavy blast made them stagger, and the soldiers laughed.

"C'n tell they're from t'Sooth, c'n't yeh?" One of them said, his voice deliberately overloud as he confided in his friend. The other soldier didn't answer, but spat downwind with a wide grin on his face. Grasmar scowled as he regained his balance, obviously having to force the cheerful grin back onto his face.

"Greetings, my brothers!" He bellowed roundly against the howling weather. "May I bend your ears on this tempestuous eve?"

"What's a one o'them, then?" The loud guard asked, one eyebrow comically raised. Grasmar's ears went red.

"Verily, 'tis this climate in which we lowly mortals must dwell, may the gods have pity…"

"Does he speak common, yeh think?"

"… can I speak to your captain?" Grasmar managed through gritted teeth. The soldier smiled warmly and clapped him on the back, pretending not to notice when the player flinched away.

"Oh aye, 'course yeh can. Why d'n't yeh say?"

"Thank you." The player said, watching him leave with a baleful eye before muttering against the deafening wind, "And may the imps of the dark gods take the minute fragments of your perishing soul to the underworlds from when you were spawned…"

"That'd be Lurpshire." The quiet guard said impassively, and nodded backwards up the pass at the player's stricken look at being overheard. "It's a farming hamlet. Still plagued with imps, mind."

The rest of the troupe were trying to hide their smiles when the first guard returned, bringing with him an older man with a tired expression. Unlike the two guards, this man walked with the casual assurance that his sword was never far from his hand, and he knew well how to use it. He held up his other hand to demand silence before Grasmar even so much as drew breath, and then beckoned the group closer.

"I have no patience with shouting over this wind, so listen well." he said wearily, barely looking at them. 

"I know you have many sick children, starving grannies and homeless pets, but I must give you the same answer everyone else got: you cannot trade here. The route is closed. Go home, sell your wares, and spend the extra time with your families. But do not think to trade in Salydis."

"But we're not traders," Grasmar cut in, a cunning smile starting across his face. "I am sure…"

Again, the man held his hand up, an annoyed line between his eyes. "The route, sir, is closed. What about that fact makes you wish to argue?"

"We're players…" the master started again, this time with no artifice.

"The Lady Salydis asked for us to come." A quiet voice broke in, carrying clearly in the lull of the wind. Half the players turned to gape, let alone the guards, but Numair ignored them to keep looking directly at the captain. His eyes were as honest as the tale was false, but his voice held a vein of pure iron. "She knows our names. Give her our names, and ask her if our journey here has been wasted. We did not come all the way here to be turned away at the gate!"

The captain blinked, and for the first time looked around at the troupe. They smiled back uneasily. Some were wearing the bright costumes they performed in, as an extra layer against the cold mountain wind, but most of them simply looked like mud-stained, weary travellers. He rubbed the bristle on his chin thoughtfully. "Players, you say?"

"That's right." Grasmar chimed in, but the captain's eyes locked again with Numair's. The mage looked back, his gaze perfectly unreadable.

"I d'n't know…" the noisy guard started uncertainly. "She has some odd ideas s'mtimes, but she wouldn't let'm in… what with the…"

"Hush." The word was soft, but undoubtedly an order. For the last time the captain's eyes passed over the troupe, and came to rest on Numair. He sighed and pointed back down the mountain.

"Go back where you came from, about six miles, there's a town there called Keteyn. Set up there for a few days, rest, perform, eat fire, whatever it is that you do, with my blessing. As soon as you get there, write down all your names and send them back to me- I'm Erik of the castle guard, the runners will know me, just tell them to bring it to the border. I'll go and ask her Ladyship on your behalf. Whatever Idama says, I'll come and meet you in Keteyn the next day. If It turns out you're wasting your time, you'd better be running away back down the mountain by the time I get there."

"We're not." Daine promised, avoiding the half-scared looks of the others. "Even if you just gave her one name, it would be enough."

The captain shrugged, and pulled out a scrap of paper and a stick of charcoal from his belt purse. Grasmar opened his mouth pompously, and then keeled over in a coughing fit before he could speak. 

While the other players rushed forward to give him some water, Numair shrugged and said, "Well, I suppose my name will do. Numair Salmalin… of Lon."

"Lon." Erik said the word flatly, but his eyes flicked up and a strange expression crossed them. Before they could ask him what was wrong, he had folded up the scrap and tucked it back into his belt. "I will meet you in the town square tomorrow, at noon." He said dismissively, and turned away before another word could be said. As soon as the man's back was turned, Grasmar's coughing fit stopped.

"Did you w- witch me?" He demanded, tears streaming from his eyes. Numair nodded apologetically, and handed the man a flask of water.

"I am sorry," he said, "But your name wouldn't have gotten her attention."

"My name..!" The player drew himself up proudly, and then stopped to take a drink, rather spoiling the effect. He sighed as he replaced the stopper and wiped his mouth. By the time they were walking back down the pass, he was quite cheerful again. "Well, no harm done, I guess, as long as we get in. You could have just asked me."

"Next time, I will." The man promised solemnly. "But I hope that this is the last time you are implicated in our plans."

"Implicated?" For once, Grasmar seemed at a loss to understand a four-syllable word. "Are you saying this is… is dangerous?"

"We don't know yet." Daine said, her voice quiet so that the other players wouldn't overhear. "But… we know something about the lady. Something which could hurt her. We don't know what she'll do about it, yet, but…"

"Stop- stop- stop!" The circus master made a sweeping motion and then placed one finger delicately to his lips. "If you don't mind, I like the idea of knowing less than you, seeing as how it'll make me safer! You keep your secrets between the two of you."

The player danced off down the trail, catching up with the men he always gossiped with while they travelled. They had left their horses further down the path, not sure if they'd have room to turn the whole parade about in a narrow pass if they were refused entry, but the players walked as rapidly as they rode, joking about the wind when it caught them and forced them in a different direction. 

Numair walked in silence for a long while, studying the swirling dust on the ground thoughtfully, until Daine caught his hand and asked what was wrong. He looked up, and then glanced down the trail at the distant Grasmar.

"I almost wish I hadn't told you." He said. "He's right, it's dangerous."

"She won't know that you told me." Daine replied lightly, "Or else, you might not have told me, and she'd've guessed that you had, and then I would be confused as well as in danger, and that would probably be worse, don't you think?"

"That's why I used the qualifier 'almost', magelet." Numair's voice was tart, but the corners of his eyes turned up in a smile. "Of course you should know everything. I just have to remind myself of that, sometimes."

"Did you see Erik's face when you mentioned Lon?" Daine asked, changing the subject quickly. "He looked almost scared, for a moment."

"He also called the lady 'Idama' when he wasn't guarding his words." The man replied, his eyes flicking back up the trail. It looked peaceful. Gorse bushes lined either side of the trail, growing strong even in the staggering bursts of wind, and tiny white butterflies let the breeze carry them from flower to flower. Still, lurking over it all, the distant peaks of Fort Salydis loomed, shining in the sun until the grey stone looked like the jagged silver teeth of a huge immortal. It was an unsettling contrast, and Numair shivered at the sight. 

"It seems we might not be the only people keeping secrets on this mountain."

888

The wind picked up over the next few hours, growing from the short bursts which had hurried them down the mountain to an almost constant roar of wind, taking people's breath away. The roustabouts opened extra sacks of iron pegs, hammering twice as many ropes into the ground as normal, and still several tents tore themselves free before they were firmly secured.

"That man's here." The snake-dancer said, watching the crowd milling outside of the women's tent, one heavily=painted eye pressed against a hole in the canvas. "The soldier from before- the quiet one. He's watching us."

"Like a punter?" One of the dancing girls asked, sounding bored. The snake-dancer shook her head, making the bells on her Carthaki headdress chime brightly.

"No, like… he's taking stock. Watching us."

"I bet it's for the lady." The dancer whispered, darting forward to peer through the gap an then flitting away, hands fluttering. "She wouldn't just take our word for it, whatever that juggler says. He'll be watching, waiting for us to slip up so they can turn us away." She pouted and brushed her hands down her costume, making the thin fabric snug against her flat stomach. "It's enough to make my butterflies start dancing with me."

"Bother your butterflies; how do you think my snakes will feel in this wind? They'll try to curl up inside my armpits against the cold, you know they will, and then they'll tickle me so much I'll laugh."

"Who cares about your toothless old earthworms, Denna?" The dancer started, her voice growing shrill. Daine stepped up to the gap in the curtains, glanced through, and calmly turned to take her wings from the costume chest. As one, both women gasped and grabbed at her hands.

"What are you doing? You can't possibly climb up there in this!" The dancer tried to unpick the girl's hands from the fabric, her painted nails catching in the gauze. The snake-woman was less violent, but her eyes were panicked.

"I have to, if they're watching. We have to get through the border. Why would they let in a rope dancer who won't dance?"

"Because they know you're not an idiot?" The dancer shrilled, looking around to the other women for help. Some of them nodded, but most of them shrugged and turned away.

"They put my poles up for me. They're fine. The wind didn't blow them over, and the rope always catches the wind a little anyway. I'm fair used to a bit of breeze." Daine knew she was being foolish, but some stubborn part of her mind fought against the fear. "If I do it I'm a player, not a spy."

"You're more likely to be a puddle of flattened grease on the ground." The snake-woman said brutally.

Daine shook her hand off and ducked out of the tent, gripping the wings tightly when the wind caught them and tried to tear them from her hands. There was another reason she wanted to climb, now that she knew they'd peaked Idama's interest, and she didn't have the spare time to worry about being safe.  
 _  
I can always turn into a bird, and fly down._ She told herself, reaching the notched pole which had so many ropes strung to it that it looked like a strange triangular tent.  
 _  
I can do this. From there, I'll be able to see for miles. It will be perfect._

She squared her shoulders and gripped the first notch on the pole, feeling the familiar roughness of the splintering wood tremble in the wind. The high piping of the minstrels was torn away as soon as they played, dancing through the valley and further down the mountain towards the tiny hamlets they'd passed on their way through the valley. Men, women and children from those farms had been trickling into the town all afternoon, curious about the brightly coloured canvas strung across the town square. 

The wind clawed at the flags, already ripping some of them from their ropes. As she climbed Daine saw a bright blue pennant carried so high into the sky that even the birds would not be able to reach it. Her eyes followed it, and then the horizon. Looking, searching, scanning the mountains…

The platform shook under her feet, but she kept her balance easily. The wind had settled from a string of quick bursts to one continuous roar, and she realised she could work against it quite easily. She couldn't hear Grasmar's words as he wooed the crowed, but suddenly he was gesturing towards her, both arms extended and shaking in the wind, and she raised her own arms in reply.

The crowd were a distant blur of ashen faces below her as she took the first step.

888

She woke up to a strange stinging sensation, utterly unlike the empty pain that had been throbbing through her dreams. She blinked, her mind still misty, and tried to look around to see where she was. A hand touched the side of her face, comforting but firm as it stopped her from moving.

"Ssh, stay still sweetling. You fell, but you… you're safe. You dislocated your wrist. The healer's fixing it."

"I have to put it back in place." The second voice was brisk, more business-like. "It will hurt."

Daine shut her eyes again, trying to remember falling rather than wondering when the healer would snap her wrist back into position. Now that the fogginess was clearing she could remember the wind… and the sound of the crowd… and the metallic perfume of snow from the mountains…

There was a sudden sunburst of pain in her arm, and all thought fled from her mind in a black whirl. When the red lights behind her eyelids faded she cautiously opened her eyes, willing herself to breathe normally now that the pain was ebbing away. The healer met her eyes and smiled reassuringly.

"There." He said, standing up and dusting off his hands. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" He waited for her weak smile before nodding a farewell and turning to leave, pocketing his payment with casual grace and leaving orders for the patient to rest. Numair closed the door of the caravan behind the healer and returned to the bed.

"Please don't tell me I shouldn't have done it." Daine said, pushing herself upright with the hand that wasn't aching fiercely. "There was a good reason. It was worth it."

"I wonder what you'd have had to break to make it a _bad_ reason." He said sharply, and then sighed and sat closer so that she could lean against him. He kissed her forehead in a silent apology for his outburst. "We have a pass to get through the border now, if that's why you did it. I think the word they were using was 'fearless'. Idama has an excuse to be intrigued about us."

"That's good," Daine wished her head would stop spinning; even when she rested it on the curve of Numair's shoulder it still refused to settle. "But that's not why… there was another reason…" she frowned and pressed a fingertip between her eyes, suddenly confused. "There was another reason. I know it. I just can't remember what it was."

"The healer said you didn't hit your head," Numair frowned and gently pushed her hair back from her temples, checking for bruises. "Does it hurt? I can fetch him back."

"No, I'm fine. I just can't remember! I can remember climbing up there, and stepping onto the rope… and then I woke up here, but I can't remember why I decided to do it! I can't even remember falling."

"Well," the man's voice was light, but the joking tone sounded oddly strained. "I can remember that part. I don't think I'll ever forget it." He gave up trying to sound cheerful and suddenly held her tighter. 

"You scared me, magelet. I don't… I know I can get overbearing, but even the thought of losing you terrifies me. No reason would ever be good enough to risk that. I was even going to tell Grasmar to stop the show, to order you down. But you seemed happy enough." He grinned suddenly, "Sauntering across the rope like it was lying flat on the ground, like you always do. But then you got halfway across and just… stopped. You were so still the people started wondering if you were a badly cast illusion. And then… it was so quick… one moment you were on the rope, the next you were falling. The rope caught you but it snapped your wrist out."

"You were watching?" Daine asked sleepily, lowering her hand from her forehead, "Then why didn't you catch me? Like you did when I found Kit?"

He opened his mouth to answer, and then a bewildered expression crossed his face. He raised a hand to touch his forehead, and then paled and lowered it, recognising the gesture the girl had made a few minutes before. "I carried you back here and asked the townspeople to find a healer… I watched you fall. I can remember every second of it. And I … I thought…" he rubbed his forehead then, leaving an angry red mark between his eyes. "Daine, I can't remember either."

"Did I pass out?" Daine persisted. He nodded and glanced at her wrist. "No, not from that. I mean on the rope. Before I fell."

"I don't know." He said slowly, lowering his hand from his own forehead to hers. For a second the touch of his fingertips felt icy, spearing a strangely glacial memory which melted away as quickly as it had appeared. Daine instinctively drew back, trying to capture some fragment of the memory before it faded, but it was gone, and all that was left was an abhorrent coldness that seemed to be as much inside her head as on her skin.

"Daine, are you angry at me?" Numair asked, drawing his hand back at her involuntary gesture. "I would have caught you, I know… I just can't remember…"

"I know." She said quickly, smiling to try to chase away the stricken expression on his face. "I really do believe you. Honestly, I do. It's a few minutes we can't remember, not the rest of our lives! But…" She reached up, impressed that her wrist had already stopped aching after such a short time, and trailed her fingertips gently along his forehead. When he blinked and drew back she nodded, suspicions confirmed. "There. It happened to you too, right?"

"It's… cold." He said, sounding confused, and then angry. "No, that's impossible! How did they do that? We both guard our minds with our magic, they couldn't possibly have gotten inside our thoughts without us realising!" 

"Then perhaps that's what they made us forget." Daine whispered, and shuddered. The iciness lingered in her head like a taunting whisper, selfishly hoarding the minutes she had lost and refusing to return them. The gap in her memory felt worse the more she thought about it, like a yawning pit, violating the rest of her thoughts into a confused, tarnished whisper. "I don't like the thought of someone being inside my head."

He didn't answer, but his arms tightened again for a moment. She wrapped hers around his shoulders, recognising some of her own horror in the hard set of his jaw and wondering if the comforting gesture felt as useless for him as it did for her. 

"Who do you think it was?" She asked, hoping that giving their silent attacker a name would make them less ghoulish. "The lady?"

Numair looked into the grey eyes of the girl who loved him, and wished he could take away the fear which cobwebbed her eyes into silver. He wished he could explain to her what he thought, what he knew or even what he just suspected. But it had taken him years to accept the revulsion his own thoughts led him towards, and even longer for the memories to stop warping his dreams into nightmares. He didn't want those dark shadows creeping into her bright eyes, dulling them into the lifeless gaze of that other girl who had died so many years ago.

"No." He said finally, raising her face so he could kiss her. Her lips were cold and tasted of salt. "No," he said again, drawing away so he could wipe the trace of that single tear from her cheek. "Not Idama. She's flesh and blood, sweetling, like the rest of us. She couldn't do this."

"Then… tell me who could?" She whispered imploringly, not caring to hide the fear in her voice. He shivered and looked away briefly, trying to blame the howl of the wind for his own answering dread. His answer couldn't be spoken out loud, because some part of his heart still believed that if your nightmares had no name, they couldn't possibly hurt you.


	5. My Love

_  
Hear my words. Hear them clearly._

_Without name, without form, without a story do I speak to you now. I am air, I am water, I am sky, I fly. I soar. I listen and sing. Without reason I dance with my words._

_But meaning? Ah, yes, with meaning do I speak. My meaning is hard to hear. It skips past, settling behind my eyes and then fleeing my mind. I do not know my words. I know my meaning. I speak to you. Perhaps you will understand where I cannot, even though these words are mine, and spoken in my voice._

_Hear me, then. The creature in the attic speaks. The demon who howls at night... oh yes, that demon. You hear it and shiver. Hear my words and tremble. Perhaps my madness is catching. She certainly seemed to think so, with her shining dresses and glittering fingertips. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps the madness is contagious._

_I must have caught it, myself. I revel in it. Perhaps I drank it from the air, as rich and heady as the finest wine. I breathed it in like the sweet saltiness of a tumbled bed, and danced in its shadow. Oh, I am surely mad. They tell me so, and so I embrace it. It is my beauty, my love, my gift. Once upon a time I knew myself, and I knew myself to be destined to love. Not to be loved, for that was never my gift. I have no skill for making others care. But I... I could love like the open sky, spreading vast arms of sunset clouds to sweep us into her embrace. I could adore like the wind, as it breathed softly into every ear of its endless affection. And I did. I could never simply like a person. I either adored them or loathed them. And my loathing was a kind of love, and I longed for it with equal passion._

_Now I speak it, I do not think myself so mad. We all yearn to be loved. I am not other, I am perfect. I am what you desire. I am water, I am sky. I fly, I soar. Listen to me sing. Without reason, dance with me, love, and hear my words._

_Without name... my name? My name..._

_My name..._

888

“You must be sure to say your name clearly.” The herald looked bored, but his eyes glittered with frank curiosity. Word had obviously travelled quickly- or, at least, more quickly than the ponderous, shaky footsteps of the players’ caravan as they made their way carefully up the cliffs. They had left their carts in the comfortingly level courtyard with obvious relief, happy to be safely enclosed in four stone walls which let none of the biting winds rip at them. Daine and Numair had eyed the thick walls with less pleasure, silently taking in the strength of the fortress and the number of guards who thronged the walls. They had been relaxed, leaning casually over the battlements to jeer at the tumblers who looked so ridiculous in their bright tunics, and the players had shouted back up at them. 

It took very careful eyes to see the wary hands hovering near their weapons. It took trained eyes to notice the casual flicker of each face as the soldiers counted their guests. Two very careful pairs of trained eyes saw this at a glance, and quickly looked away.

The herald arrived to usher them in to the main hall. They filed through the archway into an echoing stone corridor, brushing against the vast doors of dense cedar which were carved with warring mountainous creatures. Wolves and hawks snarled at each other as the thick stone walls of the keep quickly stole the guarded mountains from their sight. 

The herald carried on with his instructions of court etiquette, his voice echoing in the stark passageway as he dawdled ahead of them. Daine touched Numair’s elbow, gesturing for him to lean down so she could whisper in his ear. 

“Are they keeping something in, or out?” She asked, “Could you tell? I couldn’t work it out.”

“No, me neither.” Numair frowned and tugged at his nose, keeping one eye on the herald. “We’ll find it hard to get out, though, either way. They can either keep us here as prisoners, or to protect us.” 

As if on cue, the great wooden door they’d passed through creaked shut behind them, pushed by a throng of servants who scattered, faces down, as they were replaced by more armed guards. The men smiled and leaned back against the wood, heedless of scratching the carvings with their well-tended armour. Their grins were not reassuring. 

“If we need to get a message out, to tell Jonathan, promise me you’ll fly out of a window as soon as you can and not argue about it?” Numair demanded, rounding on her and struggling to keep his voice low. Daine bit her lip uncomfortably and linked her arm through his. 

“I don’t know if there _are_ any windows.” She replied, not agreeing. Numair seemed about to press the point when the herald abruptly stopped talking, and gestured them forward. 

“Which one of you,” He said in his bored voice, “Is Numair Salmalin of Lon?” 

“Here.” Numair said, his voice clear in the silence.

The herald smiled thinly but didn’t say anything else, simply gestured for the whole troupe to follow him a second time. By now they were deep inside the mountain, where the walls felt damp and cold to the touch and every step echoed with a metallic harmonic. A second set of the thick wooden doors loomed ahead of them, but before they could make out what these ones were engraved with they were flung open, and the passage was flooded with golden light. 

It was like stepping from an armoury into a treasury. What had been grey steel and solid iron was now warm gold and soft silk. The room was huge, larger even than the main hall in the palace, but instead of warm brick walls the cave edges were swathed in endless bolts of fabric. Some hung down in veils, shimmering, some protected the room from draughts, and all was in the colours of the house of Salydis: warm orange and shining yellow. The floor was coated with sweet-smelling woven mats, and even the sound was different. The echo had vanished, and the soft piping of a skilled flautist wove through the soft, cultured voices of the people within. 

Daine smiled wryly, realising why the herald had been so strict on his instructions of etiquette, and almost wished she’d listened. She instinctively brushed her hands down her tunic, smoothing the travel-stained fabric into a more ordered mess of creases. Around her, she was aware of others doing the same. She was surprised that Numair, usually so careful with his appearance, was watching the players with a slight smile on his face, hands tucked into his belt idly. 

“It’s a game she’s playing, then.” He said, a strange look of satisfaction in his eyes. “Do you know, Daine – I think this is going to be fun.” 

The girl blinked and stopped her hands from nervously combing through her hair. She didn’t know what he meant, but before she could ask she heard Grasmar’s nearby chuckle, equally soft. 

“If she really cared about decorum, she’d’ve let us freshen up before herding us in here. She’s putting us in our place.” He explained easily, not stopping his own tweaking at hems and stray threads on his clothes but not looking overly concerned. By then they’d almost reached the head of the hall, and the mutual tidying had turned into a series of nervous twitches. One by one the people at the head of the crowd bowed and moved aside. Daine stretched to see over the heads of the group, but couldn’t see anything yet. The swathes of fabric and the crowd made the room seem far too close. 

“It’s like being inside a bubble.” She muttered, glancing up and seeing that even the roof shone with orange satin. “A big, orange bubble.” 

“I wonder if the first people to settle in this valley sheltered in these caves.” Numair replied absently. 

“You would wonder that.” Daine smiled and then took a breath when the crowd ahead of them finally thinned. Unlike the others, who had spoken their own names, the herald made a point of announcing Numair’s name to the room in a loud, strident voice. All chatter stopped, and the Lady Salydis stepped forward. 

She was swathed in orange and gold, a mass of fabric which brushed the floor and flowed from her shoulders in heavy, embroidered pleats. Her hair was the dusty brown-black of coal, combed with oil until it shone and braided in an intricate design. Gold ribbons were threaded through the hair, hanging down behind her ears and weaving in and out of the precise curls at the nape of her neck. She wore no jewels, but her face was heavily emphasized with paints; a thin line of kohl on each eye echoed the plucked arch of each eyebrow, united in glowing golden shaded eyelids, and a blush of carmine made her lips look swollen. She was a creature of perfection, pampered and cosseted until she glowed in the orange candlelight. The golden ribbons ringed her head like a crown, and she lifted her head regally as they approached. She could have been any age, but the kohl made her piercing eyes look wide and childlike – a yamani doll, wrapped in priceless silk.

 _It’s all a game,_ Daine reminded herself, feeling small and skinny and shabby. The creature’s lips curved upwards, showing a glint of teeth, and the girl squared her shoulders. _I’m not scared of you. I can’t even tell what you really look like under all that paint._

They made their bows, and stood silently, waiting for the glittering doll of a lady to acknowledge them. She looked at them archly for a long moment, and then smiled flatly and inclined her head. Her eyes flicked up for a moment – strange, brown eyes that were so light they were almost as yellow as her robes – and scanned the rest of the crowd. They flitted across to her guards, and for a second there was a strange hesitation in her look. 

Daine wondered, afterwards, at that expression. If the lady hadn’t been so completely self-possessed it might almost have looked like she was asking for approval. The girl itched to glance behind her, to see who the lady was looking at, but the moment passed as rapidly as it had begun, and the players were dismissed without a second glance. The silence broke, and the soft laughter of the courtiers began anew. The herald told them, in a lowered voice, that a welcoming banquet was being prepared for that night, and now they’d been properly introduced they should rest and freshen up. No performing would be expected until the next day. The Lady Salydis, he said with a slight smile, was very compassionate about such things. Besides, a tired tumbler is boring.

The players nodded and made sounds of agreement, but a few glanced at each other in confusion. The snake dancer, looking half-dressed without one of her pets circled around each arm, whispered too loudly to her neighbour that she was certainly never boring, no matter how tired she was. The herald raised an eyebrow. 

“That’s as may be, but even so, we have strict rules about our guests.” He smirked. “You have crossed our threshold, and must bow to our will... in this, at least.” 

The lady made an involuntary movement, but when a few people looked curiously in her direction she was, once again, serene. The players bowed raggedly and thanked her for her hospitality. As they trailed from the room, Daine couldn’t help glancing back. 

The lady was staring after them- especially at Numair- but her eyes were unreadable. Then, abruptly, the lady saw Daine watching her, and their eyes met. For a second Daine was the victim of such a flash of such pure hatred it made her heart race. The creature’s eyes narrowed, those white teeth showed, and her fists shivered as if she longed to clench them into fists. A breath, a heartbeat, and then... there was nothing. 

The Lady Salydis stared at Daine impassively, blankly. 

Catching her breath, the girl left the room. 

888

“Maybe you imagined it.” Numair said, hunting through his pack for a clean shirt. “It was pretty tense in there.”

“I didn’t imagine anything.” She knew her voice was curt, but she couldn’t help it. Even the memory of that look made her feel ill. There had been something about it, something uncanny, which made her stomach feel cold. Numair stopped his searching to look around, his expression quizzical. 

“But, Daine, it just doesn’t make sense. Why would she hate you? She doesn’t know anything about you, apart from the fact that you’re with me. And you said she didn’t look at me that way.”

“No, but...” Daine tailed off, sounding confused. “It happened.” She insisted finally.

He was silent for a long moment, “I wonder what this game is that she’s playing. I wouldn’t put it past her to do something so strange, just to see our reaction.”

Daine looked up, “How would a normal person react?” 

“I don’t know,” He sounded amused, “Let’s say she’s playing her card... she wants us to think she hates you. Let’s take the next logical step, since she’s also spent a lot of effort showing off her money and military strength to us. We are poor, travel-worn travellers, presented to her in rags. The implication is that she has all the power, and we are at her mercy. She’s made you the target. What do we do?” 

“We’re not at her mercy. We could shapeshift out, or fight, or make a simu... thingy...” Daine gave up on that word, “You know what I mean.”

“Yes, so that’s one option – we show her what we’re capable of, and then she’ll know how to defend herself against us. We could also try to blacken her name, and that way she’ll find out what we know.”

“But she’s only threatened me, in this game you’ve made up.” Daine reminded him, “Why would we need to fight?” She smiled slowly, seeing the answer in her own question. “Ah, I see... she wants to see if you’ll protect me. So another option would show her that we make each other weak.”

“Eloquently put. I feel so loved right now.” He drawled, and then grinned. “So that’s option two. Option three is what we’re doing right now. We come back here, discuss it, and the guard outside our caravan reports back to her, so she knows how we plan. But we’ll have to think about option four, too, because the guard is currently hearing a lot of inane chatter from my warding spell.” He flicked his eyes up at her. “You’re talking about how lovely the lady’s dress was.”

“She looked like someone had set fire to her.” Daine shrugged, “How’s that?” 

“Dynamic and smouldering.” The man’s voice was solemn, but his eyes laughed as he turned back to his searching. 

“Option four is best for us,” The girl said slowly, putting away the dress she’d unpacked and reaching instead for her darkest tunic. “In option four, I’m scared of the lady, so I don’t go to the welcoming banquet. I’m tired from travelling anyway, so I stay here and blow the candle out. And while everyone’s getting friendly in the main hall, no-one will notice another bat flapping around the castle.”

“She might expect you to stay away,” Numair warned, but he obviously liked the idea. “She doesn’t know you can shapeshift though, so she won’t be expecting all of it.” He finally found his shirt, buried in a knot under the rough travelling clothes, and shook out the creases. “I’ll bring you back some food.”

She thought back to that glare again, and shuddered. Something about it made her remember the icy helplessness that still gave her nightmares. “Don’t worry, I’m not hungry.” 

“Regardless.” He started getting changed, his voice muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head. “You’re the only person in the world who can have a healing and not feel hungry afterwards. You have to eat _something,_ sweetling.” 

The girl laughed and tugged at the hem of his shirt so it hung straight. “Bugs.” She said. “I’ll eat insects with the other bats. We’ll have a better feast than you, with your honey-glazed dormice and eavesdropping guards, and we’ll find out more about this mystery, and then we’ll come back and lecture you.” 

“I look forward to being lectured to by a swarm of flying rodents with great anticipation.” He brushed one of her curls behind her ear. “Be careful, magelet.”


	6. I Remember You

Night fell. The wind had died down gradually over the evening, but it still sang in hollow notes through the network of caves which formed the fort. Numair shivered and sweated by turns, too hot standing by the enormous fires which lined the room, but chilled by every errant draught. He wrapped his arms around his thin frame and headed deeper into the crowd, preferring the cloying, sticky warmth of the perfumed masses in the centre of the room to the abrupt changes of the walls. 

The banquet, they were told, was not special to them, but rather an event which happened every fortnight. All the landowners in the valley, distant relations of the noble family of Salydis, and trainee courtiers of the mountain range gathered for these feasts. Most of them clearly knew each other, and were chatting merrily without paying much attention to the players standing awkwardly in their midst. Wine flowed richly, and Numair noticed that many of the guests had already drunk enough to regret it in the morning. By the time the herald announced that the hall was prepared, some of them could barely stagger from the atrium into the hall. One by one, painfully slowly, the herald directed each courtier to their seat. 

_She likes playing with decorum,_ Numair thought, idly waiting against the wall and scuffing at the rushes on the floor with his boot. He was inclined to over-think every action, he knew, but... _Perhaps she likes this total control of her people._ The thought crystallised in his mind, into a suspicious sentence which didn’t go away. _She’s practicing how she might rule a kingdom._

He was still brooding over that point, rushes ground into a fine powder beneath one foot, when the herald called his name. Absently he followed the man’s directions and took his seat, resting his head on his chin and wondering how many of the other guests might be complicit. 

“Greetings to you all.” Said a female voice. It was close- worryingly close. He looked up in surprise, noticing with a delayed thrill of shock that he’d been sat next to the Lady herself. The corner of her painted mouth twisted at his reaction but she gave no other sign that she’d noticed. “We welcome you to Fort Salydis. Eat, drink your fill, and rest. Tonight, I will entertain you, and in return tomorrow I expect you to show me the show to end all shows!” She smiled narrowly at the drunken cheers which this roused, the blushing powder on her cheeks turning to dust, and gestured for them to begin eating. This raised a much louder cheer, and the lady sat down. 

Numair wondered what she would say, or do. She’d obviously sat him next to her for a reason, but apart from that strange half-smile on her face she barely acknowledged that he was there. The few times he tried to start a conversation with her, she answered politely and returned to her meal. Her voice was affected, pitched high, and as the meal wore on and she drank more a fine beading of sweat pooled on her forehead and made dark lines in the powder. 

The man didn’t eat much, and drank even less. The food was splendid, he had no doubt – although his comments on that matter were dismissed as quickly as all the others. There were several courses, including a salt-fish which must have been brought here from the coast. Numair exclaimed at that, wondering at the expense and the difficulty. 

“I imagine your ladyship allows certain traders through the pass to allow us to try these luxuries?” He prompted. 

She looked sidelong at him and laughed lightly, her voice pitched at a girlish, breathy giggle which made his teeth hurt. 

“There’s nothing threatening about a fishmonger, juggler.” She declared archly, raising her voice so the whole room could partake in the joke. The people laughed willingly, even those who hadn’t heard the Lady’s ‘witty’ comment. Numair flushed and looked away, not able to say anything else while under the scrutiny of so many mocking eyes. 

The rest of the meal passed in silence. The noble on his other side was too far into his cups to speak to, and whatever questions the mage asked were met with increasingly blank looks. And always, at the corner of his eye, he was aware of the Lady’s slight smile. He counted the nobles, making a mental note of the order they were sat in, and saw that each exit was guarded by the same humourless men who had escorted them in that morning. 

There was no doubt that they were prisoners. It was like Daine had said- even if they were there to keep someone out, it was clear they’d be just as vigilant at keeping the guests in. Even the players who had praised the Lady on their journey there looked at the soldiers askance, silently wondering why there were so many of them. 

The meal broke down into a drunken revelry, and the fires were built up again as servants scurried to clear the desserts away. Numair stood up and mingled with the crowd, trying to overhear any conversation which might be a clue as to the closed-off passes. There was nothing, just the intoxicated babbling of a group of clueless people. The stench of stale mead and greasy food and the heat of the room made him feel ill, and he realised there was nothing he could do here. A series of unguarded doors around the outside of the room led to the servants’ quarters and other atriums, and he chose one at random to explore. No-one in the drunken mass saw him go as he slipped through the heavy, carved door.

The room was cool, and dark, and he pressed his hand over his eyes for a moment to clear them of the stinging ache of perfume fumes and stale smoke. When he took his hand away again he could see where he was- a small anteroom, the walls lined with books and shelves. He frowned at some of the titles he could see, and was just about to examine the strange objects that lay on the shelves when the door clicked open, and a beam of yellow light half-blinded him. 

He heard a laugh- low, slightly drunk, and oddly familiar. The person who’d stepped through the door closed it behind them, and when his eyes had cleared in the darkness he could see a familiar waterfall of golden silk. He made a formal bow and wondered how he could explain his presence in this room when, to his surprise, the Lady spoke first. 

“Hello, Numair.” 

The shock wasn’t so much because of the familiarity of the words, but the voice they were spoken in. The false high-pitch was gone, and in its place were the mellow tones of a voice he still dreamed about. She’d scrubbed the heavy paint from her face, and her features looked softer, completely different, and utterly impossible. His shock must have been obvious, because the Lady laughed again. 

“I’m glad to see you again. How do you like my acting skills?” She twirled in the golden dress gaily, all hints of her regal persona vanishing. Numair tried to speak, cleared his throat, and said gruffly, 

“Which one’s the act?” 

She took a few steps forward and laid a finger across his lips, her long lacquered nails scraping across his cheek. “Now, now, telling you that would spoil my finale, don’t you think?” She laughed again, irresistibly. “Oh, I can’t believe you didn’t say anything at the feast! I thought I might _die_ trying not to laugh!” 

He flinched at her choice of words and she drew her fingers away, framing her face in a childish pantomime of guilt. “Oh, did I say the wrong thing?” 

“You...” again, his throat closed up before he could finish the sentence. She rolled her eyes and then fluttered the lashes coquettishly. 

“I? Little old me?” 

“You look like... her.” Numair managed to say, still stunned at the shade dancing before him. She laughed. 

“It’s amazing how similar people can look, isn’t it?” The playfulness in her voice didn’t change one iota, but the words became rather spiteful. “For instance, I hear you’re almost the living spit of the famed Black Mage, our dear King Jonathan’s trusted friend. Is that true?” 

“I never said I wasn’t...him.” the man tried to brazen the declaration out but tripped over the words. 

“But you came to me as a juggler.” She said mockingly, and fanned herself with one hand. “Oh, I am looking forward to seeing you perform.” Suddenly casting aside the childish play-acting, she ran a hand down his chest, leaning in closer to draw the talons back up his back. “I’ve heard a lot about your performance, you know.” 

“Stop it.” He stepped backwards, almost stumbling over a desk in his haste. The sudden surge of disgust gave him his voice back. “I’m not interested, Idama. Whatever happened before was between me and Emma, not you. It’s done with.”

“Done with?” She raised an eyebrow and took a casual step forwards again, heedless of his warning glare. “We’re going to let everything be forgotten? Every... little... detail?” 

“I didn’t say forgotten. There are a few things certain people might like to be reminded of.” He said, his words harsh, trying to stop her in her tracks. She smiled broadly, showing white teeth. 

“Hark at the martyr! You go ahead. Remind my guards, they’ll surely listen. I’ll help you spread the word. I think I might start by telling that scrap of a girl you arrived with – does she have a name, or is that not one of the important things to come between you?”

“She knows.” Numair snapped, and then instantly regretted it when the Lady’s eyes curved into a smirk. 

He was giving away far too much, being far too emotional to think straight, and with a jolt he realised that was what she’d been planning all along. She had seen them together earlier that day, and deliberately sown the seeds to split them up at the banquet. He belatedly thought back to the place settings at the feast – even if Daine had been there, there was no place laid for her at Idama’s table. She made sure I’d be alone. 

He realised it all in a flash, and knew that the Lady could see the racing thoughts in his eyes by her smirk. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here, if you know so much?” He asked, trying to regain his footing. Idama shook her head, curls flying loose from her braids, and giggled. 

“All business, aren’t you? No time to stay a while and play with your old friends. But I insist. And my guards insist. You’ll stay here, behind that delightful mask, and so will I. We’ll see who can tear away our disguises the fastest. You might find,” She said, her drunken voice dangerously playful, “That stripping away my disguise is easier than you’d think.” 

She leaned in closer, and he realised that she’d closed the difference between them again. He longed to shove her away, reminding himself who she was, what she was, and knowing that such an attack would be just what she wanted. 

She ran a finger around the collar of her own dress, pulling the fabric away from her skin and then violently dragging the nail through the cloth. The priceless weft ripped at the seam, tiny beads scattering across the room as her throat was exposed. He flushed and looked away, but suddenly had to look back, eyes widening, a white rage building in his heart.

“That’s Emma’s necklace.” He said, and grabbed her shoulders. She gasped as he shoved her back against the wall, fingers bruising her skin. Books from a nearby shelf thudded to the floor. “I gave it to her.”

“And why shouldn’t I have it, now?” She said breathlessly. 

Numair scowled and shook her. _She wore it on purpose,_ said a tiny voice in his mind, totally eclipsed by the howling outrage. 

“You... you, of everyone, had no right to...” 

“Numair,” She said, her voice soft and calming and utterly _wrong._ “I’ve worn it every day since you gave it to me.” 

He flinched and let go of her so quickly she fell to the floor, laughing and rubbing at a bruise that reddened one elbow. For a long moment he stared down at her, breathing raggedly, hands clasping and unclasping as he flushed red, and then white. She stood slowly, unconcerned as her ruined dress slid from one shoulder. The smirk was back, though – the one that said, This is my game, I am in control. 

“Didn’t you recognise me?” Her voice was quiet, melodious. The voice of a ghost. She smiled gently at his stunned expression, and drew close enough to him to whisper into his ear, “No, beloved, I don’t believe you. There was a time when you knew every inch of me.” She let her lips linger against his ear, her arms snaking around his back as she curved her body against him. The man’s hands moved to her shoulders, but only to push her away again. 

“You’re not Emma.” He whispered. “Emma died. You killed her.” 

“And yet, here I am.” She smiled and abruptly let him go, hands fluttering in a dismissive gesture as her voice returned to the regal brightness of the Lady. Her performance was over, and she was back in control even as the mage tried to make sense of this. His eyes were opaque with shocked, frantic thoughts. “Well, be off with you. Goodness knows what people might think if they saw us together like this. A few words in the wrong ear and half the townsfolk will be after you with pitchforks.” 

He stared at her, “You’re mad.” 

Her face darkened then, the first unprovoked emotion he’d seen her display. She stood up straight in the ruins of her gown, books scattered around her feet. Her eyes narrowed, and for a second the yellowish irises glowed poisonously. 

Her voice was shrill. “That’s always the easiest answer, isn’t it? Mad. They say I’m mad, like that’s the only answer, the only thing to work out. And it’s the only answer you and that... that girl will find, I promise you. You’ll come back to me, begging me for the answers, before this is over.”


	7. Hidden

Daine had found out very little from flying with the bats. The castle was vast, spanning many miles of caves and buildings, and the bats were only interested in the deserted haunts of its furthest reaches. When she'd taken the shape of a cat and crept through the tunnels she'd been shooed away from locked doors by servants and guards more times than she could count. The problem was that she didn't really know what she was looking for. In the same way that Numair had automatically counted the nobles in the hall, she started forming a mental map of the castle, paying attention to where people gathered, and where the halls were dusty and deserted.

She'd found one door, locked and bolted from the outside, which made her pause. When she flew around the outside of the tower it was in, she could see no windows. Tiny cracks in the ancient, crumbling stones let out tiny fireflies of light, so there must have been a candle burning inside it. There were no other lights in this section of the castle; the tower leaned precariously from one side of a cliff, and the wind howled around it constantly. After just a few minutes of it her head hurt, and she couldn't hear over it to listen to any noises coming from the locked room. She wondered if this was what these people had instead of dungeons- certainly being buried alive in the cliffs seemed more pleasant than this exposed building. Biting her lip, she shape shifted into a human and tested the bolt. It was new, seasoned wood, strongly made, and padlocked onto the iron frame which held it. A faint tingling warmth on the metal spoke of a spell to warn away lock pickers. Without a key she had no way to get in. Kitten might be able to whistle the lock off, but she had no way to bring her here – she'd had to fly around several guarded corridors to get to the door.

The girl was about to turn and leave when she saw something shining on the floor. Frowning, she picked it up – a small charm, engraved with a mage-sign she didn't recognise. Walking softly back down the dark corridor, eyes shaped into keen cat-eyes, she saw more of the tiny metal disks littering the floor.

When she shifted back into a bat she carefully picked up one of the disks in her claws and carried it back with her. The caravans were clustered in a friendly circle in a yard near the stables, and it was so late that most of them were dark. Her bat-ears picked up the sounds of snoring and drunken muttering from most of them- the banquet must be over. It was comforting to see that their own caravan had the soft, warm light of a lit candle peeking through the open shutter, and she fluttered down with relief.

She'd half expected Numair to be asleep too, but he was awake, sitting in the small bench that lined one wall with his head in his hands. He smiled a greeting when she landed and looked away while she turned back into a human, his face drawn and pale. Daine carefully picked up the disk and rubbed her shoulders, feeling the ache of flying setting in. She'd thought to ask about the symbol straight away, but something in his silence stopped her. Instead, she sat next to him.

"Are you alright?"

He looked up, still silent, and she saw that his eyes were reddened with tiredness and unshed tears. She drew a breath and impulsively kissed his cheek, worried at how cold he felt. "What's wrong? What happened?"

He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again and looked away. Something seemed to interrupt every action he started, like a broken clock desperately going over the same minute of time over and over again. Daine waited, not knowing what to do. She'd never seen him like this before, and it almost scared her. He was always the one who could think his way around anything. She fleetingly wondered if more of his memories had been stolen, but this didn't look anything like that cold sickness. 

She took his hand in hers and said, quietly, "You don't have to tell me. I trust you. I love you."

He looked up involuntarily at that, his eyes overpowered with sudden emotion as he kissed her with such violent tenderness she could hardly breathe. She dimly heard something fall to the floor as they moved in the small space but she didn't care. She couldn't care, not when surprised coiled around the delicious warmth in her stomach and coursed through her blood like burning oil. Not when she could feel the coarseness of his calloused fingertips holding her face, stroking the nape of her neck, tracing along the ridge of her collarbone. Not when the warmth became heat, demanding, voiceless and breathtaking.

He pulled away as suddenly as he'd grabbed her, hands strong where he still held on to her. "You know I love you, right? You _know_ that?" He demanded, his voice ragged as the words came out in a flood.

"Y-yes, of course," She whispered, trying to catch her breath and chase down the confused tatters of her thoughts. "Wha... why...?"

"No." He stopped her questions with another kiss. "Don't ask me. Please, sweetling..." the note of pleading in his voice was oddly detached. "Just tell me that you know."

"I love you," She said, confused but still speaking from her heart. He smiled and kissed her forehead, oddly tender through whatever frenzy possessed him.

"I never doubted that for a second." He promised, "But..."

She nodded, not understanding at all but saying the words sincerely. "I know you love me."

"And... and you know I'd never hurt you?" He pressed. Daine's forehead wrinkled in absolute confusion, but she nodded and echoed the words again.

"Why... why ask about hurting me? We have enough people to fight without..."

"Not that kind of hurt." He said earnestly, and when she looked confused again he smiled- a strange, pained smile which she couldn't read. The thought darted from her mind when he kissed her again, trailing his lips from her mouth to the side of her neck until she moaned and clung to him. When he spoke again the words were almost sorrowful. "Oh magelet, don't ask questions. I dearly hope you never have to find out the answers. And you won't because of me, I swear it."

 _But what if I need to know?_ Daine thought, but didn't ask aloud. Something in his eyes stopped her, an unsteady look as if his mind were trying to drag him away from her, even as he laid her down on their bed and kissed her so deeply that she thought she might drown in the fire of it. She asked silently instead, tangling her hands in his hair and arching up against him, drawing so close that she could feel their hearts beating together. That was the only sound – and the only one that mattered, really. Two hearts linked together, just as their hands and arms and legs were entwined, closer than skin warm on skin, more honest than any soft moan, and headier than any sigh.

Afterwards, the other sounds came back, but less urgently. Numair stroked her hair as it lay tumbled across her shoulder, his eyes thoughtful and less feverish. Daine cuddled into the crook of his arm and repeated back everything she'd seen on her flight in a soft voice, relieved to see the familiar academic interest light his face when she mentioned the charm.

"What did it look like?" he asked. Daine smiled ruefully.

"I brought one back to show you. I think we dropped it on the floor, though." She yawned and glanced at the shadows in the caravan. "I'll find it in the morning."

He laughed shortly, his hand not stopping its gentle pattern. "Sorry, sweetling."

"Don't be." Daine kissed his jaw, enjoying the feel of the rough stubble under her lips. He held her more tightly for a moment, and then turned his distant gaze to the ceiling. In a quiet voice, still tracing the line of her hair, he related back everything that had happened at the feast. He stopped abruptly half-way through, and the girl blinked in confusion.

"That's... not so terrible?" She ventured, wondering what had upset him so much. He blinked and returned to his silence, trying to think of how to describe what had happened in the tiny antechamber.

"We shouldn't have come here." He managed finally, his voice rough. "Jon should have sent someone else."

"Why?" Daine asked, thinking back over the banquet story with confusion, and then hazarded a guess, "Because of what happened to Emma?"

"No. Because... it _didn't."_ He said the words as if he still couldn't believe them. "Idama _is_ Emma. It's really her. She's alive! And she's... she's...." The sentence broke down, and the whole story poured out. Daine listened in silence, her eyes growing wider and wider as he told more of it. When he told how the woman had torn her own dress to shreds, she shut her eyes in something close to pain.

"You can never be alone with her again," She said urgently, taking hold of his hand and holding it tightly. "Promise me. She's dangerous. If she makes it look like... well, people will believe her over you."

He nodded. "She made sure you weren't there on purpose tonight. We won't let that happen again."

"I guess it explains why she hates me, too." Daine said vaguely, not quite knowing how she felt about all this. She traced the line of his jaw absently with her fingertips, her thoughts racing. "Numair?"

"Mm?" He looked away from the ceiling to meet her eyes. He was surprised to see that she didn't look upset or angry, but thoughtful. When she spoke it was such an obvious question that Numair was stunned it hadn't occurred to either of them before.

"If that's Emma, then what happened to Idama?"

888

The next day broke in a glory of golden sunlight, the ever-present wind dying down to a pleasant, cooling breeze. The roustabouts were awake before dawn, laughing and teasing each other about their aching heads as they began to set up the carnival. The herald had appeared halfway through their preparations, rubbing his eyes, and had curtly told them that they weren't to set up near the stables. Gods forbid the nobles should be near the plough horses! There was an elegant garden in another courtyard further up the mountain where they should set up.

The men grumbled, but under their breath. They were used to the strange demands of nobles, and they'd not done so very much work. They cursed at having to lug the heavy boarding for the stage through the winding caves, though, and their loud complaints woke up the sleeping players. In a chorus of hungover groans, the circus awoke, and staggered from their beds to find a well and splash their faces with cold water.

Grasmar didn't even bother with that. In a nod to his village upbringing, he headed for the nearest trough and plunged his head straight in. He heard a bright laugh from under the water and surfaced, flinging back sodden locks of hair to see the sky dancer watching him. She had been feeding the horses who they'd stabled nearby, and a few of them were clustered near her, contentedly chewing as she checked their manes for knots.

"Are you feeling better?" Grasmar smiled widely. Daine blinked, and then remembered that last night she had faked being too tired to go to the feast. She smiled and nodded, patting Cloud one last time and silently asking her to watch the other horses. She didn't trust them not to go exploring.

"I spoke to the Lady Idama about you, last night." The man continued, bestowing the Lady's name with all the pomp he possessed. The girl's smile was less wide at that, which he assumed to be natural nervousness at the mention of such an esteemed person. He patted her shoulder in what he falsely believed to be a reassuring gesture. "She was speaking of your performance, my dear. She has heard great things, it seems! She was very insistent that your platform be set up as soon as possible!"

"Perhaps we should wait... for the suspense." The girl corrected herself. Grasmar found himself getting irritated by her nervousness.

"You think you'll fall again? I've seen you climb that thing many times, and only fall once. And the Lady is very kind; she'll applaud even when things go wrong."

Daine gave him a watery smile and agreed, then excused herself to take the horses back to their stalls. The caravan master was left with a vague sense of displeasure, as if he hadn't just singled her out for his express attention. There were many real players lucky enough to be so distinguished! Still, he couldn't blame her for finding the Lady intimidating. It was a stupid person who looked into the face of such splendour and didn't feel the need to bow their head a little. No, the Lady was nothing like the worryingly informal king, and Grasmar liked her for it. He approved of the display of rank.

He was pleased, then, when he saw the hastily-rigged stage the roustabouts had already completed by the time he'd combed his hair, donned his finest clothes, and shaved. The performance was set to begin at noon, when the garden would be warmed and the plants giving off their delicate summer perfume. The stage included a series of seats for the nobility, covered with sumptuous tented roofs which were so close to looking like real silk that people rarely bothered to touch them and feel the rough texture. The cushions, however, were real velvet. He made sure of that. He kept them in his own caravan to ensure that they were properly cared for, and never- never- let an undeserving visitor rest against them. He reverently plumped up the crimson cushion on the main seat, and dusted a little pollen from the arm rests.

The nobles started filing in a good half hour before they were supposed to. Grasmar sent a servant running to the caravans, to urge his troupe to move here more quickly. While he waited, neatly dressed in his first costume for the show, he watched the men and women filing into their seats, or lingering in the garden paths. Their dresses, as he'd already noticed the night before, weren't so much out of fashion as a different fashion to that of Corus. Some of it was due to the mountains, he guessed- where people at court were favouring short sleeves and low-cut necklines, the Salydisians were encased in tight, full length sleeves and buttoned up necklines, their cuffs trimmed with fur. In the uncharacteristically warm summer heat some were sweating, but as a whole they were laughing and relaxed. The only real difference was in their choice of colour- despite the increased cost of those kinds of dyes (as the props master kept informing him), most of the assembled people favoured yellow and orange fabrics, and they looked like a crowd of daffodils in the sunlight.

The Lady, when she appeared, was in a dramatically tiger-striped gown with daringly bared arms. Black lines of ribbon criss-crossed on the bodice like a corset, and a bow of the same wide black ribbon adorned the front of the skirt. She acknowledged everyone's greetings with a smile, her painted face pleasant and impassive, and gestured for them to take their seats. Grasmar took a deep breath and nodded at the musicians to start their fanfare, which ended on a nervous split note. The master glared at them, then gritted his teeth and stepped onto the stage.

The performance went down without a hitch. The nobles were delighted to have such a renowned troupe in their midst, and were appropriately impressed. They laughed at the tumblers, gasped at the contortionists, and held their breath when the snake dancer produced her most dangerous looking python, hissing furiously, from its basket. She paused, letting them get a good look at the snake, before wrapping it around her waist and twining her arms in and out of its great loops of tail.

The Lady looked interested, but not fully captivated, throughout. It wasn't until Daine stepped onto the stage, bowing before she climbed the ladder to her platform, that the tigress leaned forward.

"You're the sky dancer?" She asked, her voice high and pleasant. The girl bowed silently, her eyes guarded as she waited for their host to speak her thoughts. The Lady smiled slowly, and gestured to Daine's wrist. Amidst the flamboyant costume it was hard to notice the cord which circled one wrist, and yet the Lady had spotted it straight away. "I see you're wearing a safety cord. Are you still an apprentice?"

Daine blinked and stood up a little straighter, hand straying to the cord. "No ma'am."

"Then you must be a coward!" The Lady made the words sound light, joking, but her eyes were glinting yellow gimlets. "We do not like cowards here. Why should we watch them? If you are not going to perform properly, you should rejoin the other players in the next valley."

The nobles laughed, but their eyes watched the dancer with something close to a hunger. There was no doubt that, under her light words, the Lady was being serious. If she was not happy with one of her guests, then she was perfectly in the right to send them away from her home. Grasmar held his breath, not knowing what the girl might do, and caught himself silently praying to whichever gods were listening that she not offend their patron.

Daine glanced to one side of the stage, met Numair's eyes for a moment, and then quickly looked away. Her mind was clearly made up. She smiled brightly and jumped down from the wooden stage, striding casually towards the seated nobles. When she was a few feet away from the Lady she bowed, still smiling the almost too-friendly smile, and straightened.

"Well?" The Lady drawled. Daine didn't answer. In one swift movement she drew her belt-knife from the recesses of her winged costume. Around the Lady, several nobles shouted out their surprise and backed away. The soldiers who ringed the garden started running over, but before they could do anything the dancer was holding out the knife hilt-first to the Lady with a respectful bow. Her other hand was held out, wrist bared. The skin looked white and defenceless next to the black cord which ringed it.

"I'm not afraid," Daine said clearly, still holding out the knife and her naked wrist. "If your ladyship would kindly cut this cord away, I'll happily dance with death for your amusement."

The Lady's eyes narrowed, and fixed on the girl's placidly smiling face with something close to loathing. Around her, the people were laughing and cheering at the dancer's words, and watching their beloved leader to see how she'd react. The Lady forced herself to smile and took the knife. She moved rapidly with it, stopping barely a breath from the dancer's vulnerable flesh, but the girl didn't even flinch. With gritted teeth, the Lady cut the cord, and held it up for the crowd to see.

"Do you think you're clever?" She hissed under the crowd's cheer. Daine's smile never wavered, but one eyebrow rose.

"Do _you?"_ She replied, taking her belt knife back with easy grace and sheathing it. She turned away and then looked back. "It would be a pity if I fell, wouldn't it? You've been so insistent about putting me in danger that people might wonder if it was truly a coincidence..."

The Lady smiled suddenly, showing teeth. "Then be sure you don't."

"Thank you, Emma. I'll do my best." Daine bowed and returned to the stage. She climbed her ladder more quickly than she normally did, as if she was invincible. She danced with a strange kind of freedom which defied the ground to drag her back to earth.

Grasmar didn't watch. He glanced at the Lady's face and saw such hatred that he stared at her instead, captivated. When the routine ended and the musicians stopped playing, the Lady was the only one who didn't applaud. Her hands tightened in her lap, and her long nails tore the safety cord into shreds.

"Tomorrow." The tiger-striped woman said, bounding to her feet at the end of the applause with a forced smile on her face. "You must perform for us again tomorrow. All of you. I am... I am very impressed. And you must have rooms. What was I thinking, making such talented performers stay in wooden caravans? You must stay in our guest quarters and rest. Tomorrow you will show us wonders you only hinted at today." Her eyes sought out the rope dancer's, and the brows raised archly. "If you can."

The Lady stalked from the garden before the other nobles had even finished clapping. Behind her, glinting with the orange-yellow of her gift, the mutilated safety cord smouldered into ashes.


	8. Charmed Memories

"You shouldn't provoke her, you know." Numair said, watching Daine take the elaborate wings off her back and roll her shoulders back, easing the ache. "She might lash out."

"Not in front of them, she won't. They think she's a sweet, perfect noble lady, remember. She has to keep up the illusion as much as we do." Daine's voice was bitter. "How can they be so wrong? She wanted me to fall! You could see it in her eyes."

He was silent for a long moment, fiddling with a stray feather that had drifted from a dancer's costume. "I can't help thinking we bring out the worst in her."

Daine spun around to stare at him incredulously, but didn't say anything. She leaned down to pick up Kitten, winning an annoyed squawk as the dragon dropped whatever she'd been playing with. When she looked down, the girl saw it was the silver disk she'd dropped the night before. Both mages had looked for it in their few free minutes that morning, but hadn't been able to find it. Kit pointed under the caravan's storage chest, where a loose floorboard made a recess for dirt and insects.

"Thank you for finding it, Kit." Daine said, smiling. The dragon reached for the charm, and then made a disappointed sound when she realised she wasn't getting it back. Sulking, she wriggled until her adopted mother sighed and put her down. The dragon raised her nose haughtily in the air, and then ran outside to find Cloud.

"Let's see." Numair took the coin from her and studied it intently. A line appeared between his eyes. "I don't recognise this symbol. It's a protection charm- someone's witched it, so it's doing something, but I don't know what it does."

"Oh." Daine leaned back against the wall of the caravan, feeling cheated. "If you draw it, I could get a bird to take it back to Corus to ask there?"

"I don't know if they'll know either." He said slowly, turning the symbol so that the silver reflected the light. He looked up, suddenly focused. "Yes, you're right. There's also the books in that antechamber... some of them were magic books I've never come across before. They were strange books, if I'm honest. Well, some of them were. I could try to read them..." He tugged at his nose, and then brightened. "In the meantime, I have an idea."

He took out his belt knife and carefully used it to carve a neat hole in the top of the charm. Asking her to take her pregnancy charm off, he threaded the new charm next to the old, where they looked almost identical. Daine latched the chain back around her neck slowly, not at all sure if she wanted to wear an unknown spell.

"They won't... cancel each other out, or anything, will they?" She asked. Numair shook his head, unable to resist picking up the charm a second time and scrutinising it. Daine rolled her eyes and stood still. "Well, fantastic." She muttered. 

He ignored her, so she folded her arms and tried to think about what she was going to do to impress the Lady tomorrow. She had no doubt that the same trick would be played on her, so it would need to be something that looked dangerous. She let her mind wander back to things she'd tried before, remembering what had made the crowd gasp. __

_Falling..._

_My foot wobbled, and for a second my heart leapt into my throat, and the wind caught me, and I didn't fall._

_I fell..._

_She gasped and opened her eyes, a familiar iciness spreading through her head. She raised her hand and tangled her fingertips in her chain, finding the new charm as icy as her mind. But it wasn't attacking her; it wasn't stealing the memories... it was giving them back._

_I remember..._

_I fell._

_But before that...  
_  
She realised she was speaking out loud, every thought that crossed her mind as they crystallised into achingly vibrant images. She remembered the sharp pain of her wrist as it snapped, and clutched the joint protectively. She remembered the coldness of the wind on that day, and shivered. And she remembered...  
 _  
Before all of that..._

_There was..._

_I can see you._

_A strange, distant voice. The voice of the wind. There was no-one to speak up on the rope, so close to the sky. I thought it was one of the People, at first. Perhaps a bird. But they don't speak like that. They have a colour, and this had a colour of its own. A golden glow, not bronze._

"Was it human?" The voice broke through her thoughts, patient and comforting, leading her through her memories.  
 _  
Maybe. I didn't ask it. I didn't think it was real. And it said, "I can see you." I was near the middle of the rope, then, and it said, "Stop walking, I don't like it." And I stopped._

"Why?"  
 _  
It asked me to, and when I refused it... I don't know how to describe it. It made me. My legs stopped moving. I couldn't do anything about it. It said it wanted me to move back to the platform, but it didn't know how to make me do that, so instead it made me be still._

_I remember the way the snow tasted on the air, because all I could do was raise my arms and listen to the voice as it chatted away, and feel the wind on my face as it pushed me off balance. I remember that it was cold. The voice told me it could see me again, and asked if I was human, with my wings. I said I was. It kept talking, and the whole time my legs were frozen, and the wind blew, and I couldn't even shift to keep my footing._

_"Let me walk!" I told the voice, interrupting the chatter in my desperation. "I'll fall!"_

_The voice... the voice sounded sulky, and then petulant. The chatter kept going, and I knew the next strong gust of wind would make me fall. So I shouted at it, demanded that it release me._

_"You want to walk?" The voice said, "Fine. Walk." And without any thought from me, my frozen legs took a great step off the rope, and I fell._

_I fell. I remember falling.  
_  
Daine blinked a few times, memories fading from her eyes like sunspots. She unwrapped her fingers from around her wrist, knowing that it wasn't really hurting, and the memory of it faded slowly into a normal recollection.

"I climbed that day because I could see this fort from the top of the rope." She said, her voice tired. "I remember now. I wanted to see what we were getting in to, so I climbed up thinking I'd be able to see."

"So anyone in the castle could have seen you back." Numair said, and breathed out heavily. Now she could see again she noticed that he'd gone pale. "I'm sorry, Daine, I didn't know that would happen. Are you okay?"

"Fine." She shook her wrist out and reached up to the charm. "Do you want to wear it? You might remember what happened, too."

He caught her hand, stopping her from unclasping the chain. "No, you keep it. I'd far rather you didn't go walking off another tightrope than have a few of my memories back."

"I'll get you another one tonight, then." Daine promised. "After dinner."

He smiled. "I'm coming with you this time. I'm very interested to see this room!" He paused when he heard the creak of the other caravans moving away, and his mood sobered. "That is, if our guest quarters aren't locked and barred."

"She wants to see what we'll do." Daine stood up, crossing the caravan to fetch the horses. She turned in the doorway, tapping the frame absently with her nails. "We won't be guarded. We'll be watched. Not just in secret – everything we do. The shows, the banquets, everything."

Numair grinned. "Then let's give them something to see."

888

Emma swung her feet peevishly against the high legs of her chair and resisted the urge to chew on one of her nails, the bored childhood habit which had made her mother despair. She greeted the players as they filed into the room with genuine affection, remembering some of them from past shows and wondering what the new faces would surprise her with. She spent so much of her life performing that she loved to see it done well. These people didn't know how lucky they were, to be able to act but say to their audience, in no mixed words, that it was all pretend. They lived two lives and were proud to boast of it. She envied them almost as much as she loved their skills.

"I hate pretending!" She winced now to remember the pure hatred in her voice. When she was younger time seemed endless, and her mother seemed immortal. She didn't think that she might remember her mother's pain-crossed face as if it had stabbed her in the heart. She remembered the same face looking calm, peaceful, unconcerned... only once. The healers had made it so, as they moved her mother in her casket in the family crypt. Emma remembered that the dead creature in the marble box had looked nothing like her mother. For weeks afterwards she could barely believe that she was dead.

But that argument... ah, it had been harsh, bitter as bile. The players were visiting the next town, and Emma had dressed that morning in her finest clothes, ready to dance with the townsfolk and enjoy the festival as the troupe processed into the square. She looked forward to it every year. And her mother had refused for the first time. Not now. Not at Beltane, not with the noble visitors watching. Lord Salydis might have greying sideburns and aged patches on his hands, but his eyes were as sharp as they'd ever been. They'd lived out their home life in a mockery of its usual horror, and this time... this time, nothing had gone wrong. Lady Lon dared to smile, dared to hope that this man was not to be scared away.

Emma rose every morning to be fussed over and pampered, all to sit in dreary rooms with an old man whose rheumy yellow eyes drifted downwards from her face at every chance. She smiled and bore it, thinking of the arrival of the players whenever she couldn't look cheerful, and daydreaming about the new stories they would perform when his rambling anecdotes made her want to scream. She bore it. And then when her mother said she couldn't go to the festival she snapped.

She couldn't remember the words now, but the way she'd screamed them... yes, that was crystal clear. And the way she'd run off, barely noticing the hot tears streaming from her eyes as she fled through the halls. She'd had to hide in an alleyway until the tears stopped; she could remember the dust which stuck to her face and stung when she scrubbed angrily at it. And then she'd gone to the festival, after all that, with her eyes over-bright and her dress crumpled, laughing too loudly at the jokes and gasping even when the tricks didn't shock her. She was so determined to enjoy herself that she never realised that she wasn't.

And then, with her senses so sharpened, she'd caught the man trying to pick her pocket. His fingers were delicately teasing her handkerchief from her belt when she caught his wrist, feeling the tendons in his wrist jump as he flinched.

"Why aren't you taking my money?" She'd said in a low voice, finding the first real humour in the day at his horrified expression. He blinked, smiled fleetingly and tried to bow, finding the movement difficult with her strong fingers still wrapped around his arm.

"It's for a trick." He whispered back, leaning in closer so no-one could overhear. She raised an eyebrow in disbelief and he laughed. "No, really. It will magically fly from your pocket to the stage, and then when you come to collect it from me I get to kiss the hand of the prettiest girl in my audience."

She blushed but still didn't let go of his hand. The warm pulse under her fingertips seemed to root her to the real world, to a place where, today, she didn't have to pretend. He didn't move but watched her levelly, waiting for her to make a decision. Emma decided that she didn't care if this man was lying. It was only a handkerchief, and she had many. She smiled and held out the piece of embroidered cloth with her free hand.

"I look forward to reclaiming it." She whispered.

What else did she remember? She had barely heard the crowd's applause when she'd stepped onto the stage. The wooden boards creaked under her feet and she could feel the sun-warmed wood through her thin dress-shoes. The pickpocket's dark eyes were laughing, sharing the joke with her in secret even as the audience wondered how he'd done it. And she pretended to be amazed as well. Sharing a lie had a dark thrill to it that she'd never felt with Lord Salydis. He was happy to be lied to; she revelled in the truth.

Her mother did not scream the next morning. The light slanted through the windows at exactly the same angle as the day before, but her mother's eyes were cold and dead. She looked at her daughter as if she were a stranger, taking in the casually retied corset and the hopelessly tangled hair, and had simply shrugged. No words were spoken for the whole week. Emma ruined herself with joyful abandon, feeling like an adult for the first time in her life as the heat of each tryst drew her further away from her family. And yet, still, they said nothing.

Apart from Idama. But that was a different story.

"Liar." She whispered to herself, and didn't know if she meant herself, or the pickpocket, or even her mother. The word was as true as its denotation was not: Everyone was a liar. That was how the world worked.

She smiled and knew that her own lie was enacted in every lift of her eyes into the semblance of happiness. She was not happy. She was a liar. And she was in good company.

The pickpocket and the skydancer stepped into the hall, their eyes clear and wary. Looking for the lies. Looking for the truth. Let them search. The world was so swamped in lies that even the great Lady Salydis could not escape. The truth had flown from her life years ago. Emma's smile faded, and she raised her eyes to the gods in the first earnest prayer of her adult life.  
 _  
Let them find it. Please._


	9. Just Let Her Try

Daine stared at her feet and thought about the floor.

A few steps away the other players were performing a farce, raising their hands to the ceiling and declaring their love for one character, only to wink slyly at the audience and saunter off behind the scenery with another. The people in the hall howled with laughter as the players disappeared off in pairs together, and whooped lewdly when they left the stage in threes and fours. Whatever they thought the characters were up to behind the scenes was untrue. The players sighed and stretched in the cooler anteroom for a few moments, rubbing their eyes wearily before plastering false smiles on their faces again and returning to the farce.

Daine waited. She was to dance later, after the feast, but in the meantime she didn't really want to join the crowd. Some of the things Numair had told her made her feel odd, and she didn't quite know how to think about them when there were always scores of people around. The anteroom was the quietest place she'd found. Some of the players gave her odd looks when they spotted her thin shadow leaning against the wall, but she didn't mind. Besides, she had a good reason for lurking there: the next room was the strange little library Numair had found the night before, and even if she looked lost in thought she was ready to warn him if it looked like anyone might walk in and catch him looking through the books.

She looked at her feet and thought about the ground. She was used to a different kind of stone underfoot, warmed by the sun or blighted by the cold, but alive and breathing with the day and the night. This stone felt dead to her. There were no grasses that drank in the heat of the sunlight and released it in perfumed breaths by night, shining with sweet dew and swaying in the evening breeze. There were no soft voices of the people, because not even mice or voles or birds would want to live in a place like this. Daine hated even sleeping in a room with the windows shut. It made her feel trapped, cut off from the world, so here in this underground cavern of a palace she felt so claustrophobic she could barely breathe.

It reminded her of Carthak.

Yes, that was it. It reminded her of being caged and helpless, and the thought made her shudder. This was the kind of place where you could trap someone for years. You could lock them away in the darkness and no-one else would ever, ever hear them screaming.

"Are you alright?" Numair was probably the only person in the world who could sneak up on her, and Daine jumped before smiling ruefully at him and nodding. He frowned, clearly not believing her, but didn't press the question. He gestured to the library door. "I couldn't find anything. They're old books, but having read most of the titles I don't think they're magical. Whatever those charms are, the answer's not in there."

Daine nodded and stood up straighter, trying not to think about the cold stone under her fingers as she touched the wall. She made her voice light. "At least we know that now. So we're back to exploring the castle, right? What was that, plan five? Plan fifty?"

"Can't we start from one again? I've had so many failed ideas that it's getting embarrassing." Numair looked up at the back of the scenery as the sounds of crashing plates and cheerful chatter began. He smiled and took her hand in an oddly aristocratic manner, raising an eyebrow at her surprised giggle. "Come, Mistress Sarrasri, don't be coy! We must play attendance upon our gracious host!"

"And you must pick someone's pocket, my noble Lord Salmalin?" She returned, brushing down her skirts with her free hand to get rid of any wrinkles. He nodded in a dignified manner, imitating Grasmar's pompous poise, and she couldn't help smiling. "When we get back to Corus we'll have to make this spying work sound a lot more impressive than it really is, you know."

"If you steal flamboyantly you tend to get caught." He whispered into her ear as they walked back around the scenery into the banqueting hall, and she giggled.

"I have to help them set up the rope." She said, and stood on her toes to kiss him lightly in goodbye. She caught sight of something over his shoulder and her expression darkened for a second before she flashed him a last smile and darted away. Numair barely had time to wonder what she had seen before he smelled the strong, pungent and alcohol-drenched perfume of a rather unwelcome acquaintance.

"My lady." He said, trying not to sigh as he turned around and bowed. His voice might have sounded terser than he meant when he asked, "What do you want?"

"What were you doing in my library?" Emma asked, her voice flat. When the man blinked and stared at her blankly she laughed. "Oh, don't you think I know what's going on in my own home? Be sensible, little juggler. I know everything that happens here. Everything you want to find out, it seems, by prying through my books. Did you find anything?"

"No," he decided honesty was probably best, since she already knew the truth. His heart raced, although he hoped she'd think it was because he'd been found out. In truth, he was wondering if she knew he'd wanted to be discovered.

Emma would only know the truth if she had been listening in on Numair and Daine's plans earlier in the day, and he had used every spell he could think of to block that conversation from prying ears. Still, there was always a chance that any spell, no matter how powerful, could be broken. The lady smiled thinly and inspected one gilded nail with slow, nonchalant disdain.

"Did you find any money? Jewels? Military secrets? Things you can sell?" She asked, and her eyes narrowed. He tensed and looked around, but the castle guards seemed to be relaxing by the ale pitchers and not about to pounce on him.

"I'm not a thief." He said tightly, "You know that, Emma."

"Hm. I _knew_ that." Her expression sharpened, and for a moment the yellowish eyes looked almost hawk-like. "Then what were you looking for?"

"I don't know. Letters? Diaries? I want to know what happened to you." He said, and took a step closer to lower his voice. She couldn't doubt the truth in his words, because it wasn't a lie. For a moment her arrogant mask slipped, and she looked up with an odd expression.

"I can't just give you what you want." She whispered, "It doesn't work that way. You have to play along, you know. For every game there has to be someone dealing the cards, and I'm not…" She stopped and clapped a hand over her mouth with an odd cry, as if she had been pinched by a petty child. Slowly, she lowered her shaking hand and pressed her lips together in a thin, determined line. "I won't pay for your mistakes." She hissed.

"I don't know what you mean." He said, sounding suddenly weary. "Emma, I'm sorry for everything that happened between us, but it was a long time ago, and…"

"Not everyone can forget as easily as you." She laughed wildly and for a moment her eyes flashed up towards the ceiling. It wasn't an absentminded gesture, she was clearly gesturing towards something with her gaze, but before he could follow her line of sight her mood had changed again, with the rapid circling of a fractious wasp. The polite, noble mask dropped over her expression so quickly it almost audibly snapped to, and she smiled. "Ah, and the dear dancing girl has come to rescue you, it seems."

"Daine," Numair turned and greeted her warily, but with genuine relief. He held out a hand to the girl who took it with only a brief look of surprise, knowing that the mage didn't normally make such a show of affection around other people. Following his lead, she linked her arm with his and kissed his cheek in greeting before bowing her head towards their host.

"My lady," Daine said politely to Emma, "I came to tell you that we're almost done setting up for the second act, if you'd care to take your seat."

"Don't trust me with him, eh?" The woman said confidingly, smirking when Daine blushed fiercely.

"You're a very pretty woman, ma'am." She answered, stumbling over the courtesy with a look of pure dislike. "But I would trust him with anyone. I just don't trust him to keep good time!"

"He loves you that much?" Emma asked, and smiled innocently. "Well then, I'm surprised he lets you… oh, what was the phrase, 'dance with death for my amusement'?"

Numair looked away for a second, and Daine felt her hatred for the woman boil at the odd smirk on her face. "He trusts me, too." She said pointedly.

"What a wonderful, dangerous thing your love seems to be. I don't believe in it for a second." The lady's voice was lazy, and then she smiled so suddenly that the makeup on the edge of her lips cracked. Turning her head and cutting the girl out of the conversation entirely with an imperious gesture, her voice took on a bright, girlish challenge. "Numair, my dear, how would you care to make a wager?"

"A wager?" He asked, his voice guarded. Emma nodded eagerly.

"Yes! We both have something to gamble, it seems. So here's my deal. I will tell you everything you want to know, if… and only if… this girl agrees to dance with death for me every night you are here. I make the rules, and she dances to them every night. One night, one question answered. Two nights, two questions. No other favours, no unlocked doors or open libraries, just an answered question every night."

"You want her to risk her life." Numair said flatly, in a voice that said 'no' more clearly than any other word. Emma sighed and shook her head, looking woefully at Daine.

"Oh, what's wrong? I thought you said he trusted you?"

"He doesn't trust _you._ " Daine snapped, and then took her arm out of Numair's and stepped forward. This close, the woman's perfume was overpowering and the stale reek of sweat and wine was clear under it, but Daine made herself step closer. "You want me to risk my life for you? What sort of game do you think you're playing?"

"I'll forgive you that tone of voice, dancer." Emma waved a hand gently but her eyes were steely as she said. "Only once, mind. I'm not asking you for anything. If either of you want my answers he has to agree, right now, and with no more help from you. You said he trusts you. You said he loves you. Let's see which one is stronger."

Numair looked up, and Daine felt her heart twist at the bright anguish written on his eyes. _He doesn't even like me dancing with the cord on my wrist._ She thought, wrapping her hand unconsciously around the rope burn that was all that remained of where the fall had snapped her wrist out of joint. _He knows this is the best way to get answers, but he can't bring himself to agree. Who knows what Emma will ask me to do? Do I want him to agree? I don't trust her, either! But…_

He drew a deep breath, and Daine knew that he was going to say no. His eyes had moved to her wrist and she could see him remembering her falling from the rope in the town further down the valley. Slowly, knowing that Emma's eyes were fixed on Numair's face as he made his choice, Daine reached inside the neck of her shirt and brought out the charm he'd strung there. She held it up, knowing that when it caught the light he would see it. When his eyes lit on it he met her gaze and then, as if pulled by an invisible string, he forced his eyes away.

"Yes." He said hoarsely, and stared at the ground as if he wanted it to swallow him up. "Yes, Emma. I agree."

Emma laughed and clapped her hands, and both of the Tortallans flinched.

"Well then, run along!" She trilled, flapping her hands and raising her voice so that the rest of the room could hear. They caught her tone and cheered, looking towards the players' stage and chatting eagerly as their lady finished, "Let the play begin!"

888

Daine had almost finished putting her wings on when Grasmar bumbled into the atrium, wringing his hands.

"What did you say to the lady?" He asked, forgetting to speak with his usual pompous vocabulary in his anguish. "She thinks the rope is broken! She's ordered her men to change it!"

"Well then, if the great Lady Salydis has changed the rope, then it must have needed changing." Daine said through gritted teeth, and tied the last knot with a savage yank against the canvas thread. The troupe master gaped at her, and waved a hand back through the door.

"Yes, but the rope is just a rope! It's not tarred, or thick, or even pulled taut. They've just strung a rope across the ceiling and they think you can dance on it!"

"I can." She said shortly, and didn't say another word until the man threw his hands up theatrically and left her alone. Daine looked up at the tiny metal mirror the dancing women had propped up against the wall, and saw the uneasiness in her own eyes. "I can." She whispered again, "I have to. So I will."

It was almost a relief to her that Numair had to take his own turn on the stage, and that she had a few minutes alone to catch her whirling thoughts. She had pushed him into agreeing, she knew, and even now the decision was made he was still trying to talk about ways to get out of it. Daine didn't think like that. She had never been able to keep up with the rapid whirl of thoughts her friend seemed to have. In her mind, if a plan had been made, it was better to try it and see how it fared than to think of fifty new ways to change it. For every reason she gave for following through with the wager, it would only be a few moments before Numair would interrupt with, "But…".

"It's done, Numair." She said in the end, her voice frustrated. "I'm fine with it. I really am. And I don't want to talk about it. If you have to think so blessed much then think of some questions to ask that woman instead of thinking of plans. For Shakith's sake, if she found out you were trying to cheat then why would she answer any questions at all? Stop thinking and let's play the stupid game. At least this way we know she'll keep her word."

"In exchange for you risking your life." He retorted, his voice dangerous. She whirled and glared at him, unable to stop snapping.

"I hate to break this to you, Numair, but that's what I _do."_ She grabbed at her wings, bending the wires that formed them back into shape. "There's no difference between fighting a stormwing or an emperor or a crazy woman in a fort. Sooner or later, I'm going to get hurt."

"Daine, listen to me. She's not going to try to hurt you. She's going to try to _kill_ you." He said with a vein of iron patience in his voice. "She's not testing you, she's testing me. She's trying to see how far I'll let this go. The only reason… the only reason I agreed is because Emma doesn't know you're using magic to balance on that rope. Her challenges won't be as dangerous for you as she thinks, but they'll still be deadly. Once a day, for as many days as we stay here, there's a very real chance that you'll be killed… and you don't want me to think of a way out of that?"

"No, I don't." She said bluntly. "I want you to think of questions that are worth me risking my life for. I'll not do it if all you can find out is what she had for breakfast this morning."

"Gods, it's like arguing with a mule." He snapped.

"Did you look in the mirror when you said that?" She retorted, "Because I'm fair sure there's only one stubborn dolt in here, and it isn't me!"

Thinking back, Daine couldn't remember what they'd said next. She could only remember the burning ache in her throat when he abruptly turned on his heel and left the room, running his hand through his hair in the way he always did when he was upset. She wasn't even sure which one of them had the last word, because it all seemed so pointless now anyway. Numair knew Daine wasn't going to back down from any of the challenges Emma concocted in her dark, secretive mind. And Daine knew that she couldn't stop Numair from trying to protect her. Normally the thought made her feel warm inside, loved and cherished, but after their argument it made her stomach crawl.  
 _  
It doesn't seem to matter if the danger's real or just something he's made up in his mind,_ she thought bitterly. _He won't let me take any risks. He doesn't believe I can do things on my own. I destroyed a palace and hunted down an emperor and faced down the gods but he panics if I mis-tie my own damned boots in the morning._

The thought wasn't fair, and some part of her knew that – perhaps the part that had haughtily told Emma how much Numair trusted her less than an hour before. But still, the thought was enough to make Daine square her shoulders and face herself in the mirror, seeing the odd halo of the gauze wings that rose up behind her reflected face.

"She won't kill me." She told the mirror, and grinned savagely at the answering, burning fierceness in her reflection's eyes. "Just let her _try."_

888


	10. My Fine Friends

"I'm going to fall." Daine whispered rapidly. "I'll catch myself, don't worry. But I _have_ to fall."

Numair went white, but he didn't have time to reply or even draw a breath before she slipped passed him and into the hall. Before he could follow her a hand closed around his wrist, and he looked up into the emotionless face of one of the many soldiers who guarded the hall.

"The lady's askin' for you." The man said, his voice flat.

"Of course she is." Numair snapped, and then remembered himself. He forced a thin smile to his face and nodded condescendingly. "Yes, sir. Lead on."

Emma fanned herself absently with a fan and beamed widely when the juggler was brought to her side. Her face seemed to stretch like pigskin around a sausage when she spoke, and Numair belatedly realised that she was wearing some kind of glossy makeup on her cheeks.

"Ma'am." He said, his voice incredibly formal. She giggled and bowed her head back at him, mocking his formal ways. She already stank of alcohol, even after a few scarce hours of entertaining her guests, and Numair resisted an urge to take a step backwards. Still, she caught a glimpse of his judgemental glance at her goblet when a servant refilled it for her, and her shiny cheeks reddened a little.

"Some people drink to forget." She muttered into the cup, and said no more. Numair thought about challenging her on her odd choice of words, especially since his mind kept returning to the odd amulet Daine had found the night before, but he bit his tongue. There was a proper time for questions, he knew, and that time was…

…was after Daine was safely on the ground again. He looked up at the lax rope which swayed even in the close air of the hall, and shuddered.

"I'm surprised you let her do it." Emma said nonchalantly, and then dipped her eyes up at him. Her eyelashes were flecked with gold which made her look like her hair ornaments were melting.

"Daine makes her own choices, my lady." He answered, still achingly formal.

The woman giggled. Getting no response from the man, she leaned a little closer. "But you don't want her to! She's such a stubborn child, isn't she? Can't you just... send her to bed with no supper?"

"No, I…" he snapped, and then flinched back from the sudden sharpness in her gaze. Swallowing back the bitter gall of his temper he forced himself to look away, sound calm, not react. He answered Emma a lot more calmly. "We agreed to this, ma'am. That's enough, surely? I would rather not talk about _why_ we agreed."

"Aw." Emma pouted. "But I wanted to hear what she said after you were alone."

"I said most of it, I think." He muttered, remembering the blazing row they'd had and rubbing his nose.

"I can believe that." She said with quick humour, and then smiled sweetly at him. "Don't worry. I won't say anything else, my dear. No more questions from me! And none from you either. You can ask first thing tomorrow morning… if she keeps her balance, that is."

Numair barely heard her. He nodded absently, his eyes fixed on the upper balcony. In the cave-like hall it looked more like an ant-nest than a castle, with oddly shaped holes forming a walkway of sorts rather than any kind of architecture. Wooden slats had been nailed across in places to make a walkway, attached to the walls with heavy iron spikes. It must have taken the gift to drive the spikes into the solid rock, and it was to one of these buried structures that the rope was strung.

Daine stood on the platform with a soldier on either side of her. She barely seemed to notice the escort; her hand was resting lightly on the knot of the rope, and she was biting her lip in thought. She pushed the rope a little and it swung easily to one side, lax and loose in the torchlight. She swung it back and forth a few times, concentrating, and then abruptly stopped.

She knew Numair was watching. Before she did anything else she looked down for him, and her eyes lifted in a smile only he would recognise. The man relaxed, letting out the breath he'd been holding slowly.

 _She can do it._ He thought, and unclenched his fist. _She'll be fine._

Daine knelt down and took off her shoes, and then nodded at one of the guards. The man saluted to the lady, who stood up and swayed.

"My find friends!" She managed, and hiccupped. "My fine fiends! Friends! Ah, my apologies." She waved a hand girlishly at their friendly laughter at her mistake. "Tonight we have a treat! The little dancer has promised to defy the black god himself for us!"

"You will note, ladies and lords…!" Grasmar cut across the drunken ramblings of the host smoothly, improvising desperately, "That the rope is… just a normal rope! No players' trickery here! No props, no hidden safety net! Could you walk atop a rope lying on the ground, my lords? Could you balance on a rolled tapestry, ladies? Well now you must marvel, for our dancer can dance upon the air itself!" He raised his hands, bowed his head deferentially at the enthusiastic applause, and then sat down.

Then there was silence. 

Daine looked down at the crowd, smiled slightly at their stunned expressions, and then a look of absolute concentration crossed her face. Numair knew the look – it was the expression she wore when she called on her magic. Then she reached out with steady hands, gripped the knot of the rope with her hands, and hauled her bare feet up onto the outstretched rope easily. Pulling herself upright with her arms, she swung around until she was clinging to the top of the knot, and then held on for a second. The rope had barely eased its wild shaking when she leapfrogged her feet from encircling the rope onto the top of it, her bare feet curving around the braided twine skilfully. The crowd gasped as she crouched there, balanced by her fingertips as the rope bucked in the still air. Then, keeping her legs bent and soft underneath her, she bit her lip and very carefully raised herself to her feet.

 _Monkey._ Numair told himself, but even knowing that fact he could barely watch. Every time the rope swung to one side or another it cleared the edge of the balcony, and all there was below her were the seething crowd and the solid stones of the floor. He tugged his nose with one hand and tried to resist the urge to cover his eyes with his fingers as she took one step and then another out into the exposed air.

She slipped as she had planned to, one foot losing its sure grip on the rope, and the crowd screamed as one. Teetering sideways, she grabbed at the rope with both hands. Her knuckles shone white, and she was still for a second as she fought to catch her breath.

"It looks like she's not nearly as good at this as you'd hoped." Emma remarked snidely, reaching for her wine. She hadn't gasped at all, Numair noticed bitterly. He didn't look around. He would rather watch Daine pretending to fall to her death than see Emma's smug expression right now.

There was nowhere for Daine to go once she'd crossed the rope. It was tied to a metal strut at the opposite side of the cavern, but the knot was nowhere near the balcony. When she reached the end she paused, swinging the rope absently to and fro for a moment amid stunned murmurs from the nobles. Then she smiled and bowed towards Emma, and spun neatly on one foot to turn back. Numair breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's not over yet," Emma said coldly behind him, and this time he did look at her. If his eyes were wide and wary, hers were suddenly too clear and far too sober. She smiled thinly and nodded back up at the rope.

Daine was two thirds of the way back to the balcony when one of the guards stepped forward. She blinked at him, not understanding for a moment, and then a look of pure horror crossed her face. The guard didn't react, he simply leant on the rope. It bowed and bucked under the combined weight of the man and his armour.

"Hey, what are you doin'?" The second guard demanded, and shoved at the man. With the sudden release the rope sprang sideways, making an almost audible snap as the knot caught against the iron support. Daine ducked down frantically, holding on with her hands again as well as her feet, but even then the repercussion of movement made her shriek and lose her grip. She looped her elbow around the rope and hung on, staring desperately at the soldiers.

The two men kept fighting, and with every blow they managed to crash into the rope. Numair had no doubt that it was staged, and he rounded on the lady furiously.

"Make them stop!" He demanded. She raised an eyebrow, not taking her eyes away from the rope.

"Didn't you want an answer to your question?" She replied. He grabbed her shoulder in one hand.

"I know you told them to…!"

"Actually, I didn't. I didn't order them to fight, and I won't be able to make them stop. If you want that then maybe you should be manhandling someone else, Master Salmalin." She snapped, meeting his eyes. He took his hand away slowly, eyes widening as he realised that she was telling the truth.

Whatever was running this show, it wasn't the Lady Salydis. The guards fought with a glazed blankness that was completely blind to anything around them, and their movements were jerky, like marionettes.  
 _  
They're being controlled._

"Daine…" he breathed, looking back up. She was still clinging on, both arms linked around the swinging rope, and as he watched she managed to haul one leg up and wrap her knee around the rope. Arm over arm like a sailor she dragged herself to the balcony, swaying under the rope dizzily as the crowd shouted below her. When she got above the balcony she simply let go of the rope, letting herself crash down onto the wood in exhausted, heedless relief.

"I'm not the only one playing this game." Emma hissed under the relieved cheering of the crowd. The mage looked around at her, furious, and her yellow eyes were poisonous as she glared back. "Go and comfort your dancer. And tell her that the stakes are far, far higher than you ever dreamed."

888

"Numair?" Daine's voice was soft. It sounded almost as if she were scared of disturbing him even though it was obvious that the man was awake.

Reeling from Emma's deviousness and wary of their new rooms, both of them had planned to rest and then wake up early to explore the locked corridor before dawn. That was the plan, but it was late and so far neither of them had managed to fall asleep.

That was partly because of the time it had taken for them to calm down. Daine hadn't been able to stop shivering for a few hours after she had climbed the rope. Numair had found her in the narrow stairwell leading up to the balcony, staring wide-eyed up towards the wooden boards that were still shadowed by the swinging rope.

"It's over." He'd said gently, not quite knowing what else to say. She had looked up at him and her eyes were too wide even for the darkness.

"They were _laughing,"_ She whispered, and her eyes had shimmered. "The guards. It looked like they were fighting but they… they were…"

"I know." He shivered. "Emma said…"

"Don't." She stopped him, and shook her head. Her curls caught trails of water from the dank walls and she winced at the cold droplets on her neck. "Don't talk about her. Not…" She drew a deep breath and made herself stand a little straighter. Then she met his eyes with a flash of her normal humour. "Give me an hour when we're not acting out her story, please."

"Alright." He reached out and touched her cheek. Her eyes shut and she nuzzled against his hand for a moment, needing the comfort. Her skin was very cold and she shivered uncontrollably, but they stayed in the icy, dark corridor for a long time before they had to force themselves to move back into the light.

Hours later, Numair had been sitting up and staring blankly at a candle, his eyes fixed unblinking on the flickering light. When Daine spoke he looked down at her, surprised, and gently touched a coil of her hair.

"I thought you were asleep," Numair's voice was pitched just as low as her own had been. Even though he had cast a ward around the guest bedroom they still knew their voices could be heard. The spell only meant that the words would be shaped into more trivial sentences. The lumpy mattress creaked when Daine rolled onto her back to look at him, and she winced at the noise. When she met his eyes her own face was curious, and the man was relieved to see that the paleness had faded from her cheeks.

"I recognise that look from your lessons." Numair teased her, "That's the expression I always saw right before you asked me an impossible question I didn't know the answer to."

She grinned, taking the teasing with better humour than she would have a few hours ago. "I do have a question," she admitted. "A few questions, really, but I suppose there's a big one that's important and lots of little ones that you'll hate before it."

"And you can't ask me in the morning?" He sighed dramatically and made a show of tucking the covers up over her shoulders. "Look Daine, blankets! And pillows! Doesn't sleep sound like a good idea? Much better than torturing your oldest friend with questions…"

"Cloud's my oldest friend, not you," she pointed out, wriggling free.

He tried to sound aloof. "I was speaking literally, not durationally."

"I'm friends with _dragons,_ Master Salmalin. I think they have a good few centuries over you."

"Centuries, yes. Experience…?" He suddenly leaned down, pinning her to the mattress and kissing her soundly. Daine laughed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders when he would have pulled away, coaxing him back for a second, more lingering kiss. Then she rolled until she was lying above him.

"You won't distract me like this, either." She smiled down at him, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "I know you too well. You're curious now. Too curious to fall asleep without finding out what I was going to ask. You really want to know. It could be anything."

He reached up and kissed the end of her nose, looking rueful at how right she was. "Were you going to ask me to marry you?" He teased, and pressed his lips to the pulse that fluttered in her throat at the words. She made an odd noise that mingled pleasure and frustration.

"That would be an answer, not a…" Daine gasped in a breath when he silenced her with another, much more heated kiss. After long, delicious moments of losing all sense of time she found the will to push herself away. She meant to sound a little annoyed at the persistent way he kept asking her to marry him, but she was too out of breath and so the words just sounded rushed. "I _told_ you…."

"It's something I want far, far more than knowing what your questions are," he said, sitting up so he could look her square in the eye. "And I've waited for that answer for much longer than a single night already. I've become most shockingly patient. So any other questions have no power over me!"

"Just my answers?" She whispered. He looked a little taken aback at the words.

Daine blinked, suddenly unsure of herself as she thought about what she'd just said. He had been half-joking when he described the power she had over him, but she suddenly knew that she had unconsciously held it for months. It was not a vindictive or a dominating power, but it still made her feel uncomfortable. Even though she had done it innocently the thought of capturing his thoughts so completely seemed almost too much to bear. Now she could see how much had frozen for him around the hinges of yes and no. Her 'not yet' had thrown him into a mire of waiting that must still be tormenting him.  
 _  
Is that why he's been getting more protective of me?_ The thought burst into her mind like a ray of sunlight, and she shivered.

"I don't want power over you." She shoved at him, turning it into a joke before he could understand her expression. "I think we're pretty evenly matched. We wouldn't want to make things unfair."

"Evenly matched?" He raised an eyebrow. "How much Old Thak can you invoke, Wildmage?"

"None! And how many animals can you turn into, Black Robe?" She made her expression fierce, and then broke down laughing at his expression.

"It's not like we'd ever fight each other anyway." Numair said. Daine shook her head and hugged him, her smile impish.

"Not a proper fight." She agreed, "I love you too much."

"Well, there's that too I suppose." He tweaked her nose playfully. "But I was thinking more that you know far too many of my weaknesses. I'd have to be very stupid to agree to fight you."

She giggled and snuggled up to him. "Well, this is almost what I wanted to talk about. I might as well ask my question now."

"You're too devious for me to fight, as well." He commented dryly, and sighed. "Go on then, I suppose."

Daine had tried to think of a gentle way to ask the question, but she really didn't think there was one. So now, with his grudging attention, she took a deep breath and just asked as bluntly as she could: "Do you think you would be able to kill me?"

He took a sharp breath and drew back, his eyes deep and shocked. "That's not funny, Daine!"

"It's not supposed to be." She said. "I want to know. Really."

"Do you mean, am I stronger than you?" He looked bewildered. She shook her head.

"No, I meant…if it was a good thing. If I had to die. If I was really hurt and the healers couldn't do anything, or if I went mad again…"

"You didn't go mad before." Numair said flatly. "I don't want to talk about this. It will never happen, so there's no point talking about it. And it makes me angry."

"Yes or no, Numair." She prompted, and he glared at her.

"Why on earth are you even thinking about this?"

"Emma." She said simply. He flinched and bit his lip, and she caught his unresisting hand. "Don't be angry with me, my love. I know you were thinking about her too." She smiled suddenly. "You think very loudly."

"Granted, but give me some credit, Daine, I was trying to work out what she meant when she said… well, I wasn't thinking about how to kill you until you started asking questions. _Then_ I was tempted to smother you with a pillow." His joke fell a little flat, but they both relaxed a little at the uneasy truce. Numair studied the hand that he was holding, running the edge of his thumb along the short, neat nails.

"Do you want to go home?" He asked, his voice gentle even though he didn't look up. "It's not like we're trapped here. We know enough about Emma to give Jon a good reason to send back reinforcements. We could fly out at first light and report back in a few days. We don't have to stay here."

"Yes, we do." Daine smiled tenderly and kissed his forehead, "But I'm fair happy that you've reached the end of your list of plans. Retreat is always the last thing you think of before making the most of whatever the gods have thrown at us, you know. Neither of us is very good at running away."

He squeezed her hand tighter for a moment and then lay back, still gently stroking her palm as he stared blankly at the ceiling. "I thought I'd better still suggest it. At least then I can say 'I told you so' at some point."

"No, I don't think you will." Daine said slowly, and when he looked confused she stroked the side of his face. "Numair, I have an idea too. A plan. It will work fair wondrously if we agree on it, but we have to trust each other to… to not get even the smallest thing wrong."

"A plan?" He echoed. "Go on, then. What…?"

"No." She interrupted him. "I can't tell you yet. You have to answer my question first. If you say no then there's no point telling you the rest of it. We can just follow Emma's ideas until she burns that rope up under my feet."

He looked up at her, his expression pained, voice blank. "You need to know if I would be able to kill you for this plan."

"Yes."

"Then it's not a plan I'm willing to consider."

"Numair…" Daine huffed out a frustrated breath and tried again. "Look, I'm not actually planning on dying. I'm fair fond of being alive! But I have to know if you can be convincing. Because I… I don't think I could be. For this plan to work everybody has to really _believe_ you could do it – and that includes Emma, and I know that she can read you like an open book."

The man's eyes widened, and he sat up to look at her properly. He knew Daine's mind well enough to work out some of the rest of the plan, and with his usual ruthless quickness he suddenly saw how she was right. It would work.

"You're planning to fall?" He breathed.

"No," she smiled and said the one part of her plan that no-one would ever, ever suspect. "You're going to push me."


	11. Ice

888

Part 2 – My Murder

Chapter 1: Ice

888

The next morning, before the sun had even risen above the softly hazed mountains, two birds flitted out of a window in the isolated stone keep. Unlike the other hardy birds which braved the tearing valley winds, the birds had the look of the larger, slower creatures of the south.

One, an oversized hawk, tumbled about in the breeze for a few moments before finding a thermal to balance in. It looked almost as if it were unfamiliar with flying. The second bird, a smaller hawk with a lighter brown sheen to its wings, hovered anxiously beside the first until it found its wings. Then they set off together.

The smaller bird led the way with a strong sense of purpose. They flew straight to an outcrop of stones which thrust upwards from the mountainside like teeth, and then banked neatly sideways to skim along the edge of the cliff wall.

The mad creature knew that they were there. It had known all along. It followed them with the passionate, jealous disinterest of a jaded lover.

They came closer. The creature withdrew.

There had used to be boards over the window which the birds flew through. Long years had passed since they had been nailed there by shaking hands, and more than one violent winter had ripped at the wood and eaten at the iron. The stones were immutable but the window opened like an eye, bared and raw to the biting wind with its lids skinned away. The eye was dark and hollow in the early light and the birds banked sharply before they flew in.

Their own eyes would not see in the darkness. They would not be able to tell one shadow from another. The creature breathed in their scent.

The creature brushed against their naked skin and watched their feathers rustle against the chill.

The creature saw their eyes widen and dilate against the darkness and peered at the vulnerable flesh. It was close enough to see the flecks in their irises. It could almost taste them.

It reached out…

The irises it was so near to suddenly changed. The dark flecks lightened to an odd greenish colour and then to grey so rapidly that the creature felt a rare thrill of shock. It reached out greedily again, but this time the changing bird was too devious. The bird-changer knelt down and found something lying on the ground, raising it to a human face with a look of happiness.

"Here's another," the bird said in a high, female voice. "I told you there were more. They're everywhere."

The creature tasted the thing the bird held. It recoiled in horror. Shrieking mutely into the dawn sky, it sped away.

Numair frowned and rubbed his arms, feeling an odd chill in the air.

"Did you hear something?" He asked. Daine pursed her lips for a moment, tilted her head to one side, and then shook her head. He shrugged wanly and rubbed his eyes. "I'll be seeing ghosts next. This is what I get for using my magic with only ten minutes' sleep."

"It is eerie up here, isn't it?" Daine whispered, and then laughed shortly at the fact that she'd felt the need to whisper. It was almost as if she didn't want to disturb the dust! A perfect circle of clear stone lay beside her foot where she'd picked up the charm, and she scuffed at the mark with perverse satisfaction at marring the shape. "Here, this one can be yours."

"Why are they just lying on the floor?" Numair asked, crouching down to see the scattered medals better. They were all the same and all well-made from fine silver. He reached out a long finger and gently pushed one a few centimetres forward, looking at the random pattern the medals made on the stones. "It looks like someone just dropped them. There's no logic to it."

"I suppose suggesting a clumsy servant dropped them is just wishful thinking." Daine muttered, and gestured towards the stairs at either end of the corridor. "Can I show you the door? It's what I think you'll find interesting. And if you can break it down…"

"I might let the ghosts out?" he finished, and yawned. "Sorry, sweet. This is all very interesting, I promise, I'm just tired."

"It's a shame I can't bring Kit up here," Daine said a few minutes later, watching Numair running his fingers slowly along the edges of the doorframe.

"Or George!" Numair replied, and shook his hand out with a wince after touching the door handle. "Ouch! This thing is vicious!"

"Can't you…?" Daine asked, and then bit her lip when Numair shot her a look.

"After a few seconds? Give me at least a minute before deciding I'm useless, sweetheart!" He grinned when she stuck her tongue out at him and then turned back to the door. "Honestly," he muttered glibly as he traced an odd symbol over the buzzing keyhole. "The woman complains that I'm too good at picking pockets, and then criticises me for being a lousy cat-burglar."

"But at least your whining is first-rate." She grinned and folded her arms. Numair hid a smile and whispered a few words in Old Thak at the lock, watching it glow. He frowned. If the unlocking spell had failed the light would normally be blue, but the lock shone an odd yellow colour. Now he looked closer he saw that the light formed a shape that he recognised from somewhere... Drawing in a sharp breath at the realisation, he scrabbled around on the floor until he found one of the hundreds of discarded charms. Then he pressed it smartly to the centre of the light.

The spell turned a rich blue. The door clicked open.

"This is a key?" Numair breathed, and then jumped when the disk he was holding turned red hot and then started dripping from his fingers to the ground. When the silver drops hit the floorboards they hissed and disappeared, but judging from the slightly charred look of the wood this was not the first charm to be dropped here.

"So… they return memories and they unlock the door?" Daine asked, raising a hand to the one she had strung around her neck. "I thought magical things were only meant to do one kind of thing, like how healing charms can't inflict pain…?"

"Well, it's not a rule…" Numair looked around, and his eyes were guarded, "It's just obscenely difficult to make one spell do two things. Two incantations won't sit side by side, they get mixed up like oil and water and if you're not careful they form a whole different spell than the two you wanted."

"Careful," she echoed, and raised an eyebrow. "What kind of careful are we talking about here?"

"The kind of careful you learn at a university." His voice was flat, and he looked around at the disks with new suspicion. "These were made by at least a red-robe. Did you see anyone who might be…?"

Daine shook her head, automatically sorting through all the people she'd watched in the hall. "I guess you didn't either, if you're asking me."

"No." He shook his head and then drew a deep breath, looking up at the unlocked door. "Well, it explains where all the charms come from, I guess. Even if we don't know who is making them, we know it can only be one person. Shall we see if the reason why is in this room?"

They pushed the door open slowly, and whatever both of them were expecting, they did not see it. Even in the early morning light a candle was burning brightly in the middle of the large, round room. There were no windows, but chinks in the roof let in small rays of light as well as drops of sweet-perfumed dew and the endless howl of the mountain wind. The candlelight reached halfway up the walls, just below where the wooden beams of the ancient tower's roof began, and after a patch of darkness the interwoven beams of light looked almost like an enormous spider's web.

Below it…

The candle stood on a table in the middle of the circular room, and around the walls there was furniture. There was a bed and a chair, and a small fireplace carved into the curve of one wall. There was a loom and a spinning wheel, and a large harp was propped against a basket of what turned out to be embroidery.

There was also something which made Numair's eyes widen – not the secret hoard of some dangerous mage or a glimpse of a monster, but a king's ransom in books stacked almost up to the rafters along the opposite wall to the fireplace. Some of the volumes had been read so many times that the spines were nearly translucent, while others looked like they'd only been purchased a few years before.

And that was it.

The room was completely deserted.

"But… there must have been someone in here!" Daine breathed, barely daring to break the silence. "The candle is lit and… and… this is where someone lives! There's no other way out except the door we came in through! Even if I changed into the smallest creature I know I'd still struggle to squeeze through the gaps in that ceiling. So where did they go?"

"Maybe they were never in here in the first place," Numair whispered, but he didn't believe it. They could feel the living warmth in the air. There had been someone here, in this room, when they had been in the corridor outside. Someone had been locked in, trapped by the spells and the walls, and now they were gone.

"People don't just disappear." Daine whispered, and shivered. "Please tell me that's not something red robes can do, Numair."

"No. No-one can do that." He tugged at his nose, and couldn't resist a shudder of his own. It felt like a baited trap. He suddenly thought that, at any moment, the door could slam shut behind them and lock them in. He swallowed heavily and caught at Daine's shoulder when she would have looked around the room more closely. "Come on magelet, we need to leave. Right now."

"Maybe they're hiding…" Daine breathed, stepping away from him without noticing her partner's unease. She took a few steps towards the fireplace and crouched to peer up the chimney. "Maybe…"

"Daine," Numair could have sworn that the door creaked then. It's just a breeze, he told himself, but the hairs on the nape of his neck were standing on end. He had to stop himself from darting towards the door and grabbing at the wooden frame. She looked around at the sharp note in his voice, her forehead crinkling.

"What's wrong?"

"Something…" he said vaguely, and she raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"We might not get another chance to look around." She said. Numair wanted to agree with her. Normally he would – she was absolutely right, and they should be scouring this room for anything that might explain the mysteries that were scattered throughout the valley. He shook himself off and headed for the pile of books, telling himself that the oppressive weight that seemed to be crushing him was just tiredness. The door wouldn't slam shut. He didn't need to look around at it to see that it was moving. It just didn't creak with human hands guiding it. It was just the breeze.

He scanned the spines of the books and reached out a hand.

His fingertips were inches from one of them when a feeling of dread crashed down on him. It was like the icy feeling of his memories returning amplified a hundred times, like being doused in cold water. He gasped and stood stock still, his outstretched fingers shivering from the assault. He moved his hand away from the books. The painful coldness faded a little and he could breathe again.

There was definitely something in the room with them. Something that could effortlessly send a magical attack right through the shield he'd been holding. Something dangerous.

He grabbed Daine's wrist without thinking. She started, surprised by his sudden panic, and he demanded, "We have to go! Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?" She retorted, and pointedly looked around the room. "There's _nothing here!"_

He shook his head and hauled her to her feet. Daine swatted at him irritably but his panic was infectious. Even if she could feel nothing, by the time Numair pulled her to the door she was keeping pace with him.

The door was moving violently now, shuddering against the lock as if it were possessed. It nearly caught them as they ducked through the frame but then it crashed back open again. For a long moment it froze as if it were holding its breath. They stopped, staring at it in mute horror, and then it slammed shut so violently that the crash echoed along the stairwell.

The door glowed blue for a long moment, and then yellow, and then every single charm that was scattered on the floor blazed up in a flare of sick yellow light. Daine shrieked and pressed herself against the wall, and Numair saw that her bare foot was burned where she'd been standing on one of the disks. As they backed away, every single silver circle dripped into the floorboards like liquid, and the hallway was filled with the acrid stench of metallic smoke.

Then there was silence.

"Dear Gods…" Daine breathed, and coughed out some of the poisonous fumes. "Who was doing that? The mage you said about?"

"N…no…." Numair gasped, remembering the casual brutality of the icy spell. The fear was fading now, so rapidly he was half-sure it had been a part of the spell.

Numair relaxed a little and belatedly saw that in his fear he'd been digging his fingernails into the solid stone wall. He looked back at the door and saw that the lock was once again glowing with the vicious spell that locked it. The gentle glow of candlelight shone through the cracks, and the heaviness in the air was slowly draining away. The dawn birds had started singing, and the mage could almost swear that he could hear a low voice humming along from within the magical cage.

"I was wrong. It's not a red mage." He whispered. "It's far, far more dangerous. And it's _still in there."_


	12. Spices

"Why did you ask Emma about her soldiers?"

It was a few hours later, and the hearty breakfast that Emma had given her guests in the main hall had done a lot to banish the lingering feeling of unease both mages had felt since exploring the tower. By the end of the meal they felt almost normal again, although the short formal interview Numair had been called to with Emma had soured his mood a little. Daine had stayed in the hall, and he had waited until they were walking down the mountain trail towards the market town before describing what had happened. It was the first time they were alone – although they had to speak in hushed voices to keep from being overheard by the other players who had decided to visit the market, too.

Numair glanced at Daine and saw that it hadn't been a casual question: she looked baffled. He didn't answer right away and she caught at his arm.

"No - really. Why ask her about the number of enlisted men? We already knew that; Jon told us before we left! Why didn't you ask her about the room, or about the charms?"

"I don't think we should let her know we were in the tower." He said, lowering his voice so that the other players wouldn't overhear. Daine bit her lip, and he nodded. "If she thinks we're fixated on her silly game, then she won't expect us to find out about… other things."

"You don't think they're connected?" Daine watched as he shook his head, and then she smiled crookedly. "Fair enough. I guess if you ask about that room now you won't know if she's lying anyway. So that's why you asked a question you already knew an answer to, right?"

"Yes," he looked a little sheepish. "I am sorry for wasting your question, though."

"It doesn't matter." The girl smiled sweetly and linked her arm through his. "After I die you can ask Emma all the useful questions and you'll know if she's telling you the truth."

He sighed. "I wish you weren't so gleeful about this whole idea, magelet. Even building this simulacrum is going to give me nightmares. I don't know how you're so blasé about it."

"At least I have the good manners to tell you that it's going to be a simul-thingy and not actually me getting killed." Her voice was a little distant, and the man flushed. They both found it difficult to talk about what had happened in Carthak years ago. They usually avoided the subject altogether - but sometimes Daine's hurt memories came out in odd flares of temper and he never quite knew what to say.

"If we find everything we need in the market today it will take me a week to build it." He said eventually. "Maybe a little longer if you want it to do more than just die convincingly."

"Gods, no. It doesn't even need a voice." She kissed his cheek. "Thank you for agreeing to this. And... and for all the hard work. I know that for anyone else it'd take months."

"Anyone else? Do you have so many mages at your beck and call?" He pretended to look jealous. She smiled and shook her head.

"Not even one," she hesitated. "Numair, you do think that this is a good idea, right?"

"I agreed, didn't I?" He let go of her arm to balance as he crossed a forded river, and realised that the girl had stopped walking. When he looked back she was looking down into the stream, a slight frown crossing her face. "Daine?"

"What? Oh, no." She flashed a smile up at him and skipped easily over the slippery stones. "Sorry."

Numair sighed and tugged at his nose as they fell back into step. "Daine, when you sort out whatever's whirling around in your mind you will tell me, won't you?"

She blinked at him in a pantomime of innocent confusion and the man recognised the expression she always wore when she was hiding something. He decided not to press her, but several times during the rest of the time it took to walk down the trail he had to bite back another question. It wasn't like Daine to keep secrets from him. Although he didn't begrudge her the right to keep her own counsel he did wish she didn't seem so worried about this one.

The fair wasn't as large as they were used to, with about a third of the traders as the Corus market. The other players peeled off from the group quite quickly, making snide comments about the fire-eater who had taken centre-stage on the town fountain. Daine and Numair split up too.

Daine took out the list of materials Numair had scribbled out that morning and pulled a face at his handwriting before heading towards the apothecary stalls. She didn't buy all the ingredients in one place, but drifted between the traders and bought amounts that wouldn't raise suspicion. Rosehips, fennel and pumice stones from one; beeswax and carded sheepswool from another; amber and a wishbone from a third.

None of the ingredients made any sense to her, but then she could only imagine a simulacrum as a kind of marionette like her grandda had carved back in Galla. She knew that there must be much more to it than simply making a wooden doll and then chanting over it in Old Thak, but why exactly Numair would need seven and a half perfectly-straight liquorice roots escaped her.

In fact, all the ingredients together wouldn't even fill half of a saddlebag. It was how Numair and Lindhall had managed to craft a simulacrum in secret in the university. But there was one thing which they would need a lot of to make this one convincing. Daine was relieved when Numair had gone alone to find it because the ingredient he needed was fresh blood, and there was only one place to get that. As much as she could tune out the voices of the People from her magic, she still couldn't bear their screams in her mortal ears whenever she neared a butcher.

The scent from the bag she carried was quite heady, and she recognised the odd spiciness of it as the scent which had followed Numair around in Carthak.

Figures. She thought a little bitterly, and then sighed and leaned against the marketplace stocks. All it needs is Varice's perfume mixed in and it'll be exactly like old times. Maybe this time Numair can get kidnapped and I'll get betrayed by my childhood friend.

As if she had summoned it, her chain of thought led her into a memory that was so vibrant she wondered if she'd fallen asleep in the warm sunlight.

She wasn't in the windy mountain town any more but in the sun-drenched training courtyard of the Carthaki palace. A practice bow was rough under her fingertips. The wood felt almost exactly like the hemp weave of her market bag until that awareness faded.

Kaddar had stalked away, his ego bruised by the teasing of the other men who had watched the foreign girl shoot, and for a few moments she was alone. She took a deep breath and finally felt like she could relax. She sat down and rested the bow against the wall, hating to put such a fine weapon on the ground. Kaddar, she remembered with a smile, had thrown his bow petulantly into a fig tree.

From here she could hear the birds. They sang cheerfully in their aviary, and even though there were guards outside of their gilded cage their song was free for anyone to hear. Daine smiled and shut her eyes. The wall was so warm behind her that it was like lying in a feather bed.

"Thayet will be so happy that you're trailing those skirts in the dust." A voice said snidely, and she opened one eye to see Alanna grinning at her. Daine didn't reply but she patted the ground next to her, looking pointedly at the Lady Knight's wide silk breeches when Alanna flopped down in the dust.

"I think if I was wearing my own clothes I might be better at this diplomatic stuff." Daine murmured, shutting her eyes again against the harsh sun. "Kaddar and his friends see my flimsy skirts and think I must be just as pathetic, I'm sure."

"Is he making friends with you or with your clothes?" Alanna cocked an eyebrow at her, but seeing that the girl's eyes were shut she made her voice more expressive instead. Daine sighed.

"Neither. I don't think he's too keen on being friends with a girl." Her lips quirked in a sudden smile. "Perhaps if I dressed like that Varice and powdered my face and agreed with everything he said then he would stop showing me off to his friends like some kind of… of freak. That's what people seem to expect around here, isn't it? Women looking all perfect and fake and lovely?"

"Do you want him to be friends with you or fall in love with you?" Alanna started laughing. Daine blushed so red that she almost blended in to the bricks behind her, which made the knight laugh harder.

"Daine, people are always going to judge you based on what you look like, whether you wear a beautiful dress or farm clothes or… or disguise yourself as a man. There isn't a right way to behave to convince someone to like you. Just be yourself and slap some sense into the spoiled brat if he makes any comments. After all, I doubt that he has ever summoned a Kraken."

"Are you trying to make me be friendly or scare him off completely?" Daine retorted, and laughed a little ruefully. "Perhaps I'm worrying about this too much. I just don't know how to… to be, here. Anyone who looks after birds and a dragon and shoots arrows should never wear clothes that tear so easily, but if I wore my own things then the guards wouldn't let me leave my room, I bet!"

"We'll be heading home soon anyway." Alanna stretched lazily in the sun. "Why are you worried at all?"

Daine didn't answer for a long moment, and then she shrugged. "Things are different here." She said carefully, "And I know I don't fit in. I'm not the kind of person who will ever fit here. But…"

"…but Numair is?" Alanna guessed, finishing the thought. Daine nodded gloomily.

"Do you think he might want to stay here? If the Emperor lets him? He seems different - happier, I mean – and Lindhall and Varice are both here, and they won't leave, so…"

Alanna shook her head irritably and then patted the young girl's shoulder. "Don't worry. Numair left all his books in Corus. Those damned things are better hostages than all the Varices in the world. And he's probably more loyal to Tortall than most of the people who were actually born there. He'll be heading home with us, don't fret."

"What if Varice asks him to stay with her?" Daine asked, softly voicing the thing that had been troubling her since she had seen the way her teacher had greeted the beautiful mage. Alanna chuckled.

"I don't think he's the sort of person to agree to do something dangerous just because someone whispered sweet-nonsense-nothings in his ear, Daine."

The memory faded, and Daine gasped in a breath and clutched her forehead with icy hands. Something butted against her shoulder, and she remembered that she had the hemp bag held in one hand. Blinking rapidly, she lowered her hands and squinted into the greyer sunlight of her home country.

An oddly spicy aroma drifted up from the bag. Daine breathed it in with pleasure and tried to place the odd feeling the combination of scents made her feel.

It was strange. She was sure that she'd never come across the spicy scent before in her life.

888


	13. Illusions of Life

The next day was a feast day, and everyone was woken up early by the insistent toning of the priests in one of the echoing temples. Yawning, rubbing their eyes and looking guiltily at the cheap incense they'd half-forgotten to set aside, the players all traipsed down to leave their offerings for their patron gods, and then blearily returned to their rooms. It was a day of rest for most of them – there would be a feast later, of course. Even if they had bought cheap offerings, most of the players had remembered to buy some good meat or wine from the market. Looking forward to a night of gluttony beside cheerful bonfires, they returned to their beds.

Daine, alone, returned from the temple on hushed feet and shut the door carefully behind her. Kitten knew better than to make a fuss, and the little dragon tripped happily into the bedchamber after her mother before asking to be played with. They both kept quiet and they had to step around Numair. The mage had either fallen asleep or he was meditating in the main room with his head pillowed gracelessly on a strange wooden construction.

After so many months living with him, Daine was getting used to waking up alone and finding her lover passed out over some spell. He worked best in the early hours of the morning, when it was quiet and he could be alone in the dark with his rapid thoughts. After a few weeks of awkwardness Daine had gotten used to simply stepping over him in the mornings and getting on with her own work. Honestly, he slept like the dead.

She didn't put it past Kitten to wake him up, though. Sometimes a mischievous paw could find a very painful place to step. They'd had words.

Kitten had found a small acorn from somewhere and was rolling it between her paws, covering it and then revealing it under another limb with a proud expression every few minutes. Daine tried to guess which paw it would be under next. It kept both of them entertained for nearly an hour, and Numair pushed the door open to hear Daine telling the dragon, "But Kit, it's not nearly so impressive if you use your proper magic to do it."

"Says the shapeshifting rope dancer." Numair hid something that was either a yawn or a smirk. Kitten peeped a greeting and dashed over to him with her acorn.

"I burned some incense for you, to Shakith and the Hag and my parents." Daine said. Numair sighed and scratched his nose.

"I'm sorry, Daine. I should have woken up in time to come with you. Gods know your father is already annoyed enough with me."

"That has nothing to do with him being a god. And it's his own damn fault. He should have known to warn us when he's planning on scryin'." Daine wrinkled her nose at Numair and gave up teasing him when he yawned again. "Did you work all night?"

"Most of it." He looked unapologetic. "I want to get it finished. The sooner it's done, the sooner you can stop climbing that blasted rope."

"But then we'll run out of questions."

"I'm sure you know exactly how much I care about that, especially on two hours' sleep." He sounded terse, but Daine shrugged it off. Climbing down off the bed, she stood up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

"Stop working for now, and eat something." She cut off his protestation with the ease of long-practice and planted her hands on her hips. "Numair Salmalin, if you're too tired to even say a polite good-morning to us then you're too damn tired to work on complicated magical thingamibobs."

"I need your help for the next bit." He barely registered her words. Daine cocked her head to one side.

"Well, that's just too bad for you, because I'm not going to be here. I'm going to go fetch some breakfast. You can come with me or stay right here until I bring it back, but if I catch you so much as looking at that spell I'll feed your share to Kitten."

He opened his mouth to protest and then sank down onto the edge of the bed, shaking his head sleepily. He was still thinking intensely when Daine left the room, counting off stages on his long fingers and murmuring to himself, but when the girl ducked back into the room to call Kitten he had fallen asleep.

She brought back a tray with clay bowls of lumpy porridge and some stewed fruit, and set the breakfast by the fire to keep it warm while she studied the spell. Kit pranced over to it on light feet and then squawked in disgust when her mother picked her up and held her still.

"No, Kit," Daine whispered, "I don't think we should touch it."

It looked human. That was the horrible thing about it. There was nothing about it to suggest a person – no eyes, no hair, no skin colour. It was just a strange translucent shape, but something about it was organic. It looked like it could rot.

Around it, like a scaffold around a castle tower, an intricate nest of wooden sticks had been constructed. Seemingly at random, sprigs of herbs and twists of spices had been woven into the nest. Altogether it looked like a magpie had hoarded scents instead of shiny things for its nest.

But the rotting thing... the living thing in the middle... no, it wasn't alive. Not yet. And that was what was so vile about it. It was something which looked so close to life that you wanted it to breathe, and its paralysed stillness seemed like some sick trick it was playing. And it would never be alive. Every person who looked at the rotting thing would be able to see that. It was a toy, a macabre puppet.

Daine remembered the shining varnished eyes of the puppets she had owned as a child, and hid a shiver. They had looked like they were dancing. This puppet would only ever look like it was dying.

"No wonder he wants to get rid of it." She whispered, and turned away.

Numair emerged half an hour later, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles but looking a lot more awake than he had before. He ruffled her hair and smiled sheepishly before sitting down with her at the fireplace, and Daine relaxed. It still wasn't the good-morning she had teased him for, but it was closer than his surliness had been an hour ago.

They ate in a comfortable silence until Numair abruptly tipped his bowl up and scooped his stewed fruit onto Daine's porridge. She blinked at him, spoon halfway to her mouth.

"Thank you, but I've got plenty."

"Eat it." He said shortly, and when her eyes narrowed he gestured to the simulacrum. "It's needful. Next I have to… no, you… you… you're not going to like this."

"And what? Eating until I burst will make me feel happier?"

"It'll make me feel better about doing this." He sounded annoyed. "Why are you arguing with me so much today?"

"Because you're not telling me anything, you're just being mysterious and grumpy and making me eat too much food."

"That's a fair point." He acceded, and opened his hands in an apologetic gesture. "I'll explain while you eat. Don't scowl at me, magelet – eat!"

Daine ate. He explained. She stopped eating.

"I thought we were using pig blood," she muttered, looking a little green. Numair looked pointedly at the bowl but she shoved it away with a sickened look.

"We are," he gave up trying to get her to eat and instead found a scrap of paper and a piece of charcoal. He doodled a figure on it absently. "Most of it will be, but you know the first thing they'll do is call the healers over to try and save you. I wouldn't trust most of the healers here to pull a tooth, but even they will be able to tell the difference between pig and human blood. The floor will contaminate it enough to make it confusing – those rushes are pretty filthy – but it still can't all be pig blood."

"So how much…"

"Just enough to convince them." He caught her hand. "As little as possible, Daine, and if I could do it with even less you know I would risk it."

She looked up. "I know. Do you need it now?"

"Yes, and then you must eat the rest of that fruit and get some sleep while I finish working." He saw her set her chin and gripped her hand a little tighter for a moment. "Daine, promise me that if you're feeling ill when you wake up then you won't rope dance tonight."

"How much blood are you taking?" She repeated, her eyes widening. He looked away.

"Only a pint, but… it'll drain some of your magic, too." He admitted. She let out her breath in a rush and then nodded.

"Alright, I promise." She met his incredulous look with a quirk of good humour. "Honestly, Numair, I don't want to fall off that rope any more than you want me to."

After all that suspense the actual spell was quite easy. Daine watched as Numair sterilised his knife in a candle flame and then plunged it into the pail of pig blood, whispering a few words. When he drew the knife out again it was spotless, but it glowed a little. He explained that it would combine the two liquids into one – in this case, making all the pig blood carry her gift and humanness.

Then he asked her to hold her arm over the pail. He raised the knife and then completely froze.

After a few minutes of him fidgeting and nervously turning the knife around in his hand, Daine got annoyed and took the blade from Numair. Telling herself it wouldn't hurt if she was quick, she dug the point of it into the skin he had marked and cursed broadly at the sudden pain. The blood shone the same odd pearlescent colour that the knife blade had been, and when it poured slowly into the pail it made the liquid whirl sickly.

"That," Daine said slowly, catching her breath, "Is fair disgusting."

"Don't look." Numair took the knife from her, and his fingers felt clammy next to her own. "Gods, I hate working with blood. I hated doing this part for my own simulacrum, and Lindhall was helping me then."

"Maybe it's not as bad when it's someone else's?" Daine offered. He shook his head, looking pale.

"I would rather it was mine again, honestly."

"But at least we found out you can't stab me." Daine raised an eyebrow at him. "That's nice to know, love."

He smiled shakily and kissed her forehead, lingering for a moment. When he pulled back he was frowning, and he glanced in the bucket before tying a bandage securely around her arm.

"That's enough," he said, and wrapped the linen around a few more times before tying it off. "You're very cold, sweetling."

"I feel fine," she said tartly. She sat up straighter for a moment and then toppled forwards onto her un-bandaged arm. "Ugh, the floor wants to make friends with me!"

"Well, the floor can wait." Numair picked her up. "You're going to bed."

"Did you have to sleep in Carthak? I di'n't notice." The words were starting to slur now, as her mind slowly realised that a chunk of her magic was suddenly gone. She found that her eyes were sliding shut even in the short time it took Numair to cross the room. He carefully set her down right in the middle of their bed and then smiled at her sleepy expression.

"In those sham diplomatic meetings I could have snored like a bear and they still wouldn't have noticed." He stroked her hair back from her eyes tenderly. "Remember your promise, magelet."

"Yes, yes…" she mumbled crossly, and then she was asleep.

Numair watched her sleep for a moment, and there was an odd stillness in his expression which would have frightened Daine if she had opened her eyes and glimpsed it. He looked down at his hands, raising them so slowly it was as if he were the one who was dreaming, and rubbed at a drop of blood which had escaped from the bandage. When his eyes returned to Daine they moved slowly, as if they were being dragged back to her against his will. He shivered and suddenly, violently, scraped at the blood on his hand with his nails until the skin under it was raw.

He returned to the spell. An hours-long fight began.

First, he gave it the blood. It drank it in as if it were parched, and as the blood disappeared from the pail the shape changed from a translucent mass into something solid. A rich smell rose from it, at first like fresh meat but slowly it became sweeter, softer, as fragments of herbs and spices glittered and blazed into flames inside the shape. The room filled with acrid smoke and he opened a window; an hour later he realised that it was growing dark and that the wind had blown the fire out.

The spell, he noticed in a detached way, was shivering.

It had no face, no features and it would never speak, but it was close enough to a replica to fool any scryer or mage. It wasn't alive, but it had accepted the illusion of life.

Now he had to teach it how to die.

He took a deep breath and placed one hand on the mannequin's shapeless mess of a head. His fingers clenched. Behind his blank meditating eyes he could see Daine dying over and over again. He saw her fall, and bleed, and he heard her scream. He saw her thrash in pain. He gave it all to the simulacrum in petulant fits of magic, but as quickly as he banished the images they rose again, taunting him over and over again with her hands, her eyes, her blood…

Warm, living arms looped around his shoulders and held him closely, and Numair came back to himself to find tears streaming down his cheeks, his muscles shaking from anger and bright rivers of blood trickling from his hands where his nails had bitten into his palms. The arms held him tightly, and he let out his breath in a rush.

"I asked you to sleep." He said, and his voice was a choked whisper. Daine held him a little closer and rested her head on his back.

"That's how I knew I should wake up."

"Daine," his voice was so quiet it was almost drowned out by his heartbeat. The girl shook her head and held him quietly for a long time.

"I'm staying." She murmured. "I would never, never let you face this alone."

"I can't do it," He covered his face with his hands and the images burned the insides of his eyelids like the salt tears that ran down his face. "I… I can't… I can't make it go away…"

"Ssh." She stroked his hair, kissed his temple, and he loved her for it, and he was was glad, so glad, that he couldn't see her face. His gift would paint it with blood, he knew, and it wouldn't be pigs' blood but her own. He wouldn't see her alive ever again, his magic would only see her death, and she had died, he knew that. She was dead! Because hadn't he seen it? Hadn't he planned it? He decided how she would fall! Hadn't she told him to push her?

But her voice… the spell had no voice, and so Daine must be alive, because her words were so wonderfully close: "Oh love, please don't cry. Please, please, don't let it hurt you. It's not real, love, it's not real… it's not real…" and she repeated that over and over until, like a fitful child unfolding sulky arms, his magic drew back and he started to believe her.

"Daine," he whispered, and turned so he could see her. She took one look in his eyes and drew him so close that it almost hurt.

"Oh…" she whispered, and there were tears in her own eyes when she looked at him again. "No, love." She kissed his cheek, where a tear had been running down the skin, and then again where another one had stopped.

He tried to pull back, to gesture to the spell and try to explain through his aching throat what was wrong and how he could fix it, but she shook her head with sudden fury and pulled him to his feet. He staggered slightly on numb legs and she caught him, stumbling slightly before she found how to support his weight.

"Come away," she said, and there was anger in her voice. "Don't look at it. Leave the nasty thing in the dark."

She led him out of the room and he followed, unresisting, still seeing red splashes in the corners of his eyes and dark shadows lurking at every turn. Then he was lying down, and for a panicked second Daine was gone, and then something cool and damp was pressed against his forehead and he reached up. When his fingers closed around her wrist his heartbeat slowed.

"You're alive," he whispered, and croaked out a short sobbing laugh. "But I killed you. I killed you, I…"

"Stop," she kissed him tearfully and stroked his hair with her free hand. Her voice fell to a forlorn whisper. "I know, and it… it's my fault, love. I'm so sorry."

He shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut and his fingers tightened around her wrist.  
Daine started saying something else for a moment and then choked. The hand on his head disappeared, and when he felt it again her fingertips were wet and he knew she had been wiping away tears.

She tried speaking again, and her voice cracked. "I had no idea it would hurt you this much. You didn't say… you just said it would give you nightmares, not… not… Gods!" She suddenly sounded angry again, "What a horrible spell!"

"It's not the spell." He whispered, not opening his eyes, and she understood. Her fingers stilled against his hair, and even her stillness was too much of a reminder. "Daine," he found himself pleading, "Please, talk to me. Say something…"

She kissed his cheek in apology for her silence. "I'll marry you." She said.

"What?" His eyes flew open and he twisted in her lap, forgetting that he still held her wrist until she hissed through her teeth and yanked it away.

"Gods damn it, Numair," she muttered irritably, shaking out her wrist. He caught her hand impatiently and she stopped. When she met his dizzy eyes she bit her lip and caught his shoulders with impatient gentleness. "Lie back down before you fall down. You know I'm not strong enough to pick you up off the floor."

"Bother the floor." He said, "Did I just hallucinate?"

"No, I really did just agree to marry you. Soon, if you like. Or better, when things are a bit less…" she waved a hand vaguely around the room.

"I don't believe you." He lay back down and covered his eyes with one hand, torn between his headache and frustrated laughter. "You're trying to make me feel better."

"Oh right, I forgot how good news instantly recharges the gift, even after you don't sleep for two days and then pour all your magic into buckets of pig blood. You are an idiot, by the way. The greenest mage from the Riders trainees would know better than to do that."

He peered at her between his fingers, and some of the incredulity fell from his eyes. "Then… you meant it?"

She huffed a sigh and dipped the compress back into a bowl of cold water. "Odds bobs, Numair, what was the point of you giving me that long speech about making up my mind if you're not going to believe me now I finally made a decision?"

"You meant it." He breathed, staring up at her. She smiled.

"I meant it. Of course I did."

"You meant it?"

"Right, you're talking in circles. Time to sleep." Daine kissed him lightly and evaded his hand when he sleepily tried to pull her closer. Shaking her head, she pressed a finger to his lips. "We'll talk in the morning, when you might actually remember what we say, alright? But I'm fair dizzy too, love, and if you don't choose to sleep soon you'll pass out and then you know how sick you'll be feeling tomorrow."

"I'll be dancing tomorrow," he finally managed to catch her and pull her closer for a proper kiss. His hands were shaking with exhausted clumsiness, and Daine gently wove her fingers through his, holding him still. For the first moment since her astonishing announcement the stubbornness fell from her eyes, and she returned his kiss with slow, loving sweetness. Then she drew away, smiled and stroked his hair tenderly.

"You'll still need your sleep for dancing. Do you feel better, love?"

"I'm not sure how to answer, sweet. If I say yes, you might take it back."

"Ugh!" She raised her hands in a frustrated pantomime towards the ceiling. "Blessed Gods, are you listening to this nonsense? I just agreed to spend the rest of my life putting up with this paranoid dolt! Strike me down if I'm a liar, please, and get it over with before he says something else!"

"I'm half t'mpted to tell you to duck." Numair mumbled sleepily. His eyes began sliding shut but an irresistible smile slowly crossed his face. The smile faded, but he kept hold of her hand for long after he was fast asleep.


	14. Offering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Apologies for four chapters in one post; I honestly thought I'd updated this fic before now! Hopefully this will make up for the delay.

The next morning they awoke early and slipped into the hall before anyone else was around. Even the servants were still asleep, and the guards blinked at them sleepily as they collected some leftovers from the feast day banquet and ate a quiet breakfast. As they ate they listened in on the guards' conversation, knowing that they would be the topic. Apparently their absence had been noticed the night before, but since no-one else was performing on the feast day, the lady had not been too angry that her rope dancer had also chosen to have a night off.

"She'll have something special planned for tonight," Daine remarked, sipping some flat cider from a wine goblet. "S'good. I refuse to fall off doing something easy. I'd die of embarrassment long before I hit the ground."

Numair covered a laugh with a cough and stood up, waiting for her to finish her mouthful before they left together. They had stashed the simulacrum in an arrow ledge in the first atrium, and instead of walking outside they ducked into the smaller room before the guards saw them change direction. Once they had the bundle it was simple enough to sneak it up the stairs and then, very cautiously, they crept out onto the ledge and pulled the spell out with them. It lay beside the tied rope, wrapped in canvas and lying as heavily as wet cloth in a heap. Knowing that the guards' patrol routes would bring them into eyeshot soon, they left the bundle below the men's lines of sight and left the room.

"It's not as bad as sneaking into that tower," Daine said when they were outside again, "But I still get the shivers when we do things like that. I feel like we're always two steps away from getting caught."

"I dreamed about the tower last night," He replied, a little more slowly. "I wish we'd had more time to explore."

"Well, after tonight I'll have plenty."

"True. But you can't go back in that room. That... the thing... is in there."

"So you say! I never felt it." She said a little archly, and then she shook her head. "I will be careful, though. I keep getting those cold headaches, like when I fell off the rope outside. They must be linked to that room, somehow, and gods know I don't want to lose any more memories."

Numair nodded fervently, and found himself lost in thought as they reached the stables and fetched the horses. He had felt the coldness in his own mind, too. Like Daine, he hadn't spoken about it – but he had thought about it a great deal. He reasoned that the sensation was a lot like a mage raking his magic through someone else's mind, and so Numair began to search his own mind for missing memories or traces of the gift. He hadn't found any magic, and the problem with looking for memories was that once they were gone, you had no idea what to look for.

This morning he had awoken feeling like icicles were behind his eyes. Now that Daine had reminded him, he began his normal search through his mind, and stopped. There was a gap there. A definite darkness in his mind. He could see it clearly! But he didn't understand why until he looked up and saw Daine again. Then he knew. He could see all of the things which were linked to Daine: things which he knew should be there, because he could see the woman he loved in front of his eyes, but things which he had lost. He had no idea what he had forgotten, but he suddenly realised that there were things about her which he should know, and didn't. The sudden realisation made him catch his breath.

"Daine," Numair hesitated, and then pressed on. "How… how did we meet?"

"Uhm." Daine was concentrating on tightening Cloud's tack, and sounded distracted. "You were either a bird or you were naked. Either way it was an interesting first impression." She frowned and then looked up. "Can't you remember?"

"I don't know." He shook his head as if to clear it and then rubbed at his eyes. "I can't remember if I ever remembered that. I was ill. But did I ever… ever talk to you about it before?"

"We have better memories," Daine said lightly, but her eyes were troubled. Patting Cloud to let her know she was done, she caught up the man's unresisting hand. "Don't fret on it, my love. Even if it is gone we'll find a way to get the memory back."

"But - Daine," he tugged at his nose unconsciously, "The memories I'm losing… all the ones I know I've lost… they're all memories about you. All of them. Not one of them is from Carthak or from when I was a player. It's like someone's erasing my memories of our time together on purpose."

"But we'll get them back. Remembering being a sick bird isn't important." The girl sounded stubborn ather than convinced, and Numair grabbed her arm to stop her in her tracks. His voice was sharp.

"Don't you understand, Daine? I don't want to lose a single second of those memories. I don't care if they've been stolen from me or just… just borrowed. What right does anyone else have to… to see you the way that I do?"

"We don't even know that they are seeing them." She pointed out, mulishly logical against his outburst. He laughed hoarsely and let her go.

"Fine then, even if they're just taking them randomly… I can't stand this for much longer."

"They're just memories." Daine set her jaw and matched his glare. "We have to do our jobs, Numair. You don't have to live inside your own perishing thoughts to track down that red robe."

"And what if I wake up one morning and I can't remember falling in love with you?" He asked, and his voice was deliberately too loud. Daine whitened and stepped back, looking almost as if she'd been struck. It was obvious that the idea had never occurred to her.

"You didn't have to say that." She whispered, and then her voice came back more strongly. "Don't say that. Not again. Not ever."

Numair didn't answer her for a second, not knowing if the words would even make it past the knotted lump in his throat. When he finally managed to say anything the words sounded like they were coming from another person.

"You'll die tonight. I have such a bad feeling about it. It feels like we're missing something, and I thought... I need... " He met her eyes for a long moment, refusing to look away even when his eyes burned with unshed tears. "Promise me you won't leave me alone forever."

"You know I won't," Daine looked hurt.

"I know it today," he caught her wrist. "I might not know it tomorrow. But I'll remember if you promise."

She scowled at him for a long moment, and he knew what she was thinking. She was so ruthlessly practical that she didn't even feel comfortable wasting words on something she saw as an absolute impossibility. He wasn't a whimsical person, but sometimes Daine treated the world as so black-and-white that even he got frustrated. Planning for things – even painful things – made sense to both of them, but if Daine disliked the thought then she would dismiss it from her mind as quickly as possible.

Still, she knew his mind just as well as he knew her own, and because of that she relaxed after a moment and smiled. "You're right," She said.

He drew a breath to ask again, and she grinned and shook her head. "Are we going in to town now?"

"Aren't you going to promise?" He asked, unsettled by the changed mood.

Daine smiled again and kissed him. There was a secretive slant to her lips when she pulled away, but instead of explaining she handed him his horse's reins and repeated, "Come on, let's go."

They rode into town in a companionable silence. It was only when Daine turned off the well-trodden trail and started down a thin path that Numair spoke, asking her where on earth she was going.

"It's pro'bly a short cut or something. It's not like we have anything much to do until tonight, so let's explore." She shrugged, but that mischievous look was back on her face. "You should follow me. I might get lost."

Numair shook his head, amused. Daine's ability to find trails was surpassed only by her uncanny aim. He privately suspected both talents had come from the same parent. When he nudged his horse to turn after her it went willingly, of course. Since he was already thinking about his friend, his thoughts carried on and pointed out that he was only a hapless rider when Daine wasn't silently apologising to his poor horse for every mistake.

"It occurs to me," He called out, "That after today I can look forward to getting lost and shot at while falling off grumpy horses who are missing you almost as much as I am."

She laughed at that, and playfully reminded him to duck down to his horse's neck as they made their way through the low-lying trees. The trail led through the mountains for quite a long way without stopping. It moved with the landscape, circling around large rocks and finding natural fords in the quick streams. If there had been more than one trail then they might have genuinely grown lost; the landscape was like a maze of foliage and strata. The path never split, though. It carried on in one simple line, tracing the footsteps of a thousand people and animals before them.

As they continued around the edge of the mountain the rocks and trees began to change. Where they were warmed by the sun they shone, and where they were shadowed they seemed warped and twisted. Numair, squinting, realised that the glittering light came from the sunlight, reflecting from scores of tiny trinkets. Jewellery, charms and coins were strung through the tree tops and strewn on the stones, and they twinkled as the breeze moved the branches. By the horses' feet, the gnarled shadows became poppets and creatures carved from wood and stone and tucked safely away from the path. Their faces were fierce but they held no malice; just as the shining offerings caught and celebrated the light, these lurking statues drank in the delirium of darkness.

Daine stopped, one hand twisted up in Cloud's mane. "Gods, it's beautiful." She laughed quietly, not wanting to raise her voice in such a sacred place. "It makes me feel giddy."

"Didn't you already know it was here?" Numair asked in the same hushed voice. The girl shook her head.

"No. I know where we're going, that's all. And I saw it when I was flying, so..." Her voice trailed off, and she slid down from Cloud's neck. "Some of these carvings look older than the mountains. Do you think we should leave an offering here, too? It seems rude to just ignore this god... whoever he is."

Numair dismounted and stood beside her. "I didn't bring anything with me. Do you have anything?"

She frowned, thoughtful, and then reached around her throat. Taking off the chain with the two silver charms, she unthreaded them and strung them beside her badger claw. Then she leaned forward and carefully looped the chain around a sapling branch, making a silver spiral against the green.

"Thank you for letting us use this path," She murmured, and then pressed her fingertips to the branch. "I'm sorry that I don't know your name. I don't know if it's what you do, but please smile on us today."

"Don't you mean tonight?" Numair whispered after bowing and pressing his own fingers to the chain. Daine jumped, as if she hadn't realised he had been listening, and smiled shakily.

"That too." She straightened and they both drew their fingers away from the chain. As soon as they let go they expected the chain to sliver to the ground, but to their surprise it remained, looped around the branch. When Daine cautiously touched it the silver strand refused to move, but stayed fused to the tree.

"I guess they're listening." Numair said, and he found himself looking around as if a shining god would be standing just beyond his shoulder. There was nothing there, of course, but he couldn't help shivering at the prickling feeling of being watched.

"Hello," Daine said in a small voice. Her eyes were fixed on the path, but Numair couldn't see a single thing. Then...

...he didn't know if he blinked, and the man stepped out of the dappled shadows, or if the man simply melted in from the air. All he knew was that one moment the path looked empty, and the next, a man was standing there. He was a small, neat man. His hands were neatly linked in front of his stocky frame, and a simple brown robe covered him from shoulders to feet. The toes that peeked out from beneath it were bare and muddied, but they looked perfect – soft, babyish skin on unmarked , strong feet.

His skin was as brown as a chestnut, but even with that Numair didn't think he had simply blended into the forest. His hair was bone white. It stood about his shoulders in a shock of colour, framing a square chin, laughing cheeks and kindly eyes. Those same eyes fixed on Daine at her greeting, and the mouth lifted in a smile. When he stepped forward into the light they could see that his eyes were so rhymed with cateracts he must be nearly blind.

"Good morning, daughter." The man said, and his voice was so gravelled and homely that his unearthly appearance suddenly seemed to be a trick of the light. Holding out both hands, he caught Daine's shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. Then it was Numair's turn, as with an equally affectionate, "My son," he was embraced. "I am the hermit Cieran. What brings you to the shrine?"

"I saw there was a temple," Daine said, a little sheepishly as she caught Numair's curious glance. The hermit beamed.

"You saw it? You must be from the mountains above, then, to have seen my home. Tell me, how does it look? I can only see the few leaves before my eyes."

"It looks very beautiful." Daine said, and there was absolute sincerity in her voice. "I wanted my friend to see it."

"And he couldn't see it from your mountain?" The man tilted his head to one side like a bird, and Daine blushed. He patted her hand gently and then said, "Come on, child. Tell an old man the truth. Or tell your friend, if it's easier."

"Well..." Daine looked up at Numair, and her face suddenly lit up in a smile which was so full of love that he caught his breath. "Numair, you asked me to promise you I'd not leave you, ever. And I figured... I figured if we swore it in front of a priest, that we'd not forget each other or leave each other forever and ever, then you... you would know I wasn't just promising you with words. I was promising you with everything."

"You came here to get married?" The hermit asked, his voice brimming with pleasure. Daine blinked, and then laughed out loud.

"Is that what I said? I guess that's exactly it, isn't it?" She laughed again, and looked up into Numair's eyes. Some of the playfulness fell from her eyes, and when she met his gaze there was an odd, eternal depth in her voice. "Numair? Will you forget our wedding, love?"

He exhaled in one long rush, only just realising he'd been holding his breath, feeling as if his stomach were full of butterflies as he teetered from happiness to guilt. "I didn't mean to... Daine, I wasn't trying to push you to..."

"I'm not pushed." She said, and smiled. "I'm the least pushed person in the world. I want to marry you, Numair. I said I would and I meant it. Didn't you believe me?"

He caught her chin, wondering at the absolute certainty on her face, and slowly traced the line of her jaw. "Of course I did."

"Good," She caught his other hand. "Then marry me. Marry me in this forest, in the sunlight, where the gods can see us and know how happy we are. Marry me, because I love you. Let me marry you, because you love me. Neither of us will ever, ever forget that."


	15. Stained

The priest looked horrified when he returned from preparing the temple. "Now then, what's all this?" He burst out, darting forward and catching Daine's hand. "You can't possibly be unhappy, daughter! You're getting married!"

"I'm not unhappy," Daine tried to explain, and then looked away and wiped her eyes with her hand. Numair, who had been sitting beside her on one of the crumbling stone ruins which ringed the temple, handed her a handkerchief. He looked almost as dour as the woman, and the priest looked from one to the other in utter bafflement.

"I have never seen two people fall out of love so quickly. I don't believe it."

"Oh, don't be daft." Daine laughed shakily and looked up. "It's not that. We were just talking, that's all." She didn't mean to say more, but she had been taught from her childhood not to lie to priests. When she looked up at the strange man there was such a glow of simple trust in his eyes that she knew in her heart that they could confide in him. Whichever god he served, it was not a devious deity like the Hag. This was a man who found things to adore in darkness as well as light. Blowing her nose, she slowly told him the whole story. At first Numair tried to hush her, but a strange compulsion crept over both of them. They both added details until every honest fact was laid bare, ending with their journey to the temple.

"I see where your tears come from," The man said in a melodious voice. "After all that struggling, the one precious thing that you have will be gone in a few hours."

"Not gone! We'll still be married," Daine said, "But we won't even get one night together. It's my fault." She looked apologetically at Numair, who frowned and shook his head.

"I refuse to blame you for being conscientious. Gods know it terrifies me when you do things without thinking them through."

The priest raised his hands, soothing them into silence when it looked as if Daine might argue. "May I ask a question? After you leave the castle, daughter, where will you go?"

"I'm going to search the outbuildings, talk to the animals..."

"Yes, yes, but those are all actions! And very useful ones, I'm sure. But you will still need a place to sleep. You cannot be seen flying into your husband's room every night. You said yourself that the lady knows of your magical skills. So where will you go?"

Daine and Numair exchanged glances. They hadn't thought about this at all. Daine chewed her lip, and then said, "I can camp in the woods, if I keep my campfire small."

"You will sleep badly. There are foul things in this land." The priest said solemnly. For the first time his pleasant voice held a darkness which made them both wonder if he truly was as innocent as he appeared. Then he smiled, and the simple brightness returned to his face. Raising Daine to her feet, he kissed her cheek and said, "Do not worry, little daughter. It would bless my home to have you sleep under its roof, and I have not broken bread with another for years."

"How long have you lived here on your own?" Daine blurted out, a little unnerved by his absentminded words. It sounded almost as if he was going senile with loneliness, and she felt suddenly furious at the townsfolk. "Don't the people who leave offerings visit you?"

"It seems not," The priest said, and smiled warmly. Daine struggled to return the smile until she met his laughing eyes, and her anger drained away.

"I'd like to stay here." She smiled and squeezed the man's hand. "Thank you so much."

The man led them along the reat of the trail to the temple. It was a simple stone building in the middle of an oval clearing. The crumbled stones around it hinted at other, grander buildings, long since decayed into ruin. Against their elaborate stonework the actual temple was barely more than an earthern-floored room holding a shrine. A single green stone was set into the arching roof, and the sunlight glowed through it so brilliantly that the whole room shimmered with soft light.

"We will meet you here," The man said to Numair. "After I show the child her room." And with that he tugged at Daine'a hand. She laughed at his simple eagerness and, pulling a face at Numair, ducked back under the low doorway.

Numair stood quietly in the temple, and several thoughts took over his mind. The first was immediate and amused. The priest was so honest and sweet that his eccentric quirks were fitting. He certainly wasn't dangerous. He was relieved that Daine would have somewhere to hide, and this temple was so secluded that he was sure no-one would ever find her. His second thought was darker. The sun had fully risen now, and it was no longer dawn but morning. Daine had only glanced at the sky before the priest had returned, and Numair knew by her own expression that she was thinking the same thing as himself. They could still go home. They could leave the simulacrum rotting under the bed, and simply leave. No-one would stop them. And they both knew that it wasn't an option, but that didn't mean he couldn't wish that it was.

Instead they had to return to the world outside of this holy clearing, where their minds were being attacked so skillfully they had barely noticed it happening. They were used to defending their bodies. How could they protect their minds? Numair shivered and thought, it's lucky that we came here together. If we were alone we could forget everything, and no-one would realise there was anything wrong.

And then the door darkened, and the thought fled his mind entirely.

Perhaps she was the only person in the world, because even if the priest was with her Numair was blind to him. All he could see was Daine. She had left her bow and pack behind in her room. She walked upright and lightly without their weight. But there was something else. There was a new shyness in her poise. She held herself differently. Her hands had nothing to hold and so she twisted them in front of her, catching the silvery shimmer of fabric between her hands. The dress she wore...

It must have been a tribute for the gods of light, because it had a soft sheen to it that looked luminous even in the greenish glass glow. It was made of simple fabric and held closed with one simple pin at her shoulder and another at the hip, but it fitted her as if she had been measured for it. She had let her hair down in a dark tumble which nestled in the soft fabric of the mantle. Freed from its usual severe braid, the softer hair framed her face and made her nervous, challenging eyes look impossibly bright.

"He found it," She whispered. "I said it wasn't needful, but..." She plucked at the skirt again and looked half-mortified. "I'm all dressed up like a Midwinter goose."

"Daine," He caught her hand and held it, and found he had to swallow back a lump in his throat. "You look perfect."

She caught his hand and nuzzled her cheek against it. He felt that her cheek was hot where she'd blushed, but her voice was almost steady when she murmured. "You look perfect, too. And you didn't need new clothes for that. You just got there by being you."

"Children, do you love each other?" A voice asked, and they both laughed and looked around. The priest smiled back at them and waited.

"I love him." Daine said matter-of-factly, and then she looked up at Numair and her expression grew endlessly vulnerable. Catching his hands between her own, her voice grew softer. "I love you, Numair."

"I love you," He rested his forehead against her own, feeling their hearts racing together in their joined hands. "I've always loved you, Daine."

For a long moment the priest was silent, and they were grateful. It hadn't been a simple question, they knew, and so they weren't offended that he asked. Instead, it had struck both of them with the utter reality of what they were doing. It was the first question of the ceremony. If either of them had hesitated for a moment the priest would not have carried on with the ceremony.

Daine wondered if every bride felt a tremor of fear then, when the priest could object and stop the whole wedding on a whim. She felt Numair's hand tightening around her own, and realised that he was just as nervous. When they dared to look up, the priest beamed widely at them. He drew them closer to the altar, holding one elbow each.

"It's a simple rite, children, because love should not be complicated. You must both listen carefully, and if you do not answer from your hearts I will know, so be honest!" He smiled at them again, lessening the severity of his words, and they smiled shakily back as he began.

"The person in front of you must be cherished and protected, respected and heeded for the rest of your life. They will give their life to you, and you must hold it dearly before mortals and the gods, and never let the faith they have in you falter. You will fight with the person who stands in front of you. You will light their darkest paths, and not be afraid to ask for their guidance when your own way is shaded. The person before you will grow sick. You will care for them. The person before you will create new life. You will raise it in the love you have vowed to each other, no matter how tarnished that vow may feel. The person in front of you will die. Their memory will not be erased, and their wishes not disregarded. The person in front of you deserves your love, and your life, and all that I have spoken of here, before the gods. If you cannot grant it, then hold your tongue. If you can, then before the gods and the goddesses of the Divine Realms, you must swear it now."

Daine looked up at Numair, and there was no hesitation at all in her voice when she said, "I swear it. By the Green Lady and the Hunter and the higher gods, I swear it."

"I swear it by the gods of my birth, and the gods of this country, and by Mithros and the Hag." Numair echoed her, and he gripped her hand a little tighter. "May they strike me down before I could even think of breaking my vow."

The priest leaned forward and kissed both their cheeks, standing on tip-toe to reach Numair. "Turn and leave this place, children, and finish your troth in the light the gods bless us with. Take your last twenty paces as two, and walk forever afterwards as one."

Daine caught his hand, and quietly led bim out into the sunlight. When Numair glanced back to see if the priest was following them she shook her head and tugged again at his hand.

"I've never seen a ceremony like that before," She whispered. "But we'd better do what he says! I don't think we're properly married until we do."

"How many steps do we take?" Numair sounded amused, if a little dazed. "Twenty? Then what? We get hit by lightning and fused together?"

Daine laughed and glanced guiltily back at the temple. "My room is more than twenty paces away," she suggested, and then with a hint of mischief added, "If we're going to get fused together it might as well be somewhere private."

Heading a little way out of the clearing, they pushed their way through some low branches and then Daine stopped at what looked like another ruin. Running her fingers along the edge of the stone, she frowned and felt around until their was a click. The wall seemed to shimmer, and then the illusion fell away and it looked like a wooden door. The girl opened it and then paused. The threshold gleamed under her feet with carved runes.

"When we were here before he cast a spell and said, 'the only man who'll be able to enter this room is your husband'." She whispered, and laughed nervously. "I think it's a barrier and not a booby trap but... Are you sure we've walked twenty paces?"

Numair touched the doorframe curiously, but for the first time in his life he found that he didn't care how the magic worked. "Let's find out," he said.

The runes warmed his feet as he stepped across them, and when he closed the door the room was quiet and dark. Daine opened the shutters and gasped. The windows were a mosaic of the same coloured glass, and the odd bits of clear pane made tiny beams of light which lit the room into soft, dark pools of coloured shadow.

"It's so lovely." Daine breathed, and held a hand up in the air. It gleamed blue and red and gold and violet. "Numair, look!"

He watched her, almost fascinated. "Daine, I think that's what you'd look like as a goddess."

She pulled a face and blushed, which broke the spell a little. "Should we get one of these windows for the tower?"

"It'd bankrupt us." Numair said with a wry smile. She shrugged and returned to looking at her hand, and then realised that he was watching her.

"Aren't you going to come and see?" She asked tartly. He shook his head and sat down on the edge of the bed. Daine moved as if to join him, but a thought occurred to her and she laughed. "Is this really the first memory you're planning to have about your wife? Daine-loitering-by-a-window?"

"You really do look amazing," He replied, smiling at the word. It was true. Her white dress had become a blaze of colour which moved and shivered as she moved, blending between shades like delicate dyed silk. She wore dresses so rarely that it was always a wondrous transformation. He watched her moving slowly in the dappled light and thought that she had never been so otherworldly. She had always shifted. Not between shapes, but between huntress and mage, friend and comrade, child and woman, female and feminine - a thousand masks, as insubstantial as the coloured light.

And now she had another mask, one that tied her life to his for all time, and he could see it in her eyes. There was a soft sweetness there which had nothing to do with the light. She looked at him and saw her husband. He struggled so much to believe that she was truly his wife.

Perhaps she saw that, because she walked forward and took his hands, and smiled as she led him back into the light. Without saying a word, she pressed his hand against her hip, caught up the other one, and moved as if they were dancing.

"You look like you're dreaming," She whispered, and laughed. "I think I am, too. How do we wake up?"

"I don't want to." he said immediately. "I'm dreaming about my wife."

"But I'm your wife!" She said, and blushed at the words. He laughed and nodded, and suddenly they were both laughing, holding on to each other in pure happiness.

"It's hard to believe," Daine gasped, finally catching her breath. She gestured to the room, the window and her dress with an impatient hand. "Especially with all this nonsense making us giddy."

"I'm not giddy. I like the nonsense." He complained, and drew back so he could look her up and down. "I'm going to keep telling you this until you believe me: You look lovely."

"The dress does," she agreed, laughing. He looked quite severe.

"I do not recall referring to your dress, Mistress Salmalin, but to your self."

"You've only seen bits of me." she archly responded, then added - " - today, that is."

"Is that an invitation?"

"I don't know." She pretended to be hurt. "You said you liked the nonsense."

He smiled and kissed her forehead. "Stay here so I can see." he murmured, and sat back on the edge of the bed. Daine looked confused for a moment, but then smiled and raised her arms a little, turning around slowly so he could see the whole garment properly. When she lowered her hands in front of her she saw something.  
"The light shines through the fabric," she realised, and turned back quickly. "I didn't notice that."

"I'll confess that I did if you'll admit I wasn't just complimenting your dress." Numair grinned. When she grabbed a cushion from the chair to throw he ducked and added, "Daine, you should spin around again."

"Oh, you're inccoura... inccour... you're such a dolt!" She managed, and threw the cushion. He dodged it easily, laughing, and pulled her down into his arms.

"Still no invitation, sweet?" He asked, and kissed her until she was quite breathless. Daine couldn't stop herself from moving, wanting to run her fingers through his hair and draw him closer so she could drown, but the moment he felt her hand he drew back, looking aloof. "Well, never mind. It means I can take the time to really admire this nonsense dress."

"Numair..." she managed, and then lost her mind again when he unlaced the ribbon at the neck of her gown. The satin fabric whispered against her throat and she shivered.

Numair stopped himself from smiling at her involuntary reaction, but he let the second ribbon slide even more slowly from its loop before he unravelled it. Daine would stop playing this game if she saw a smile, because it meant he'd surrendered - admitted he wanted her as much as she wanted him. But he found her stubborness irresistable, and he wanted this game to last. The longer it took, the better the moment when she finally turned to him, eyes lost and full of desire and need...

("How long were you in love with me, before you told me?" She had demanded once, "I feel like I'm being tormented for it!")

... and so he was in no hurry at all to unlace any further than the first swell of her breasts. He traced the shape of them through the soft white fabric and she sighed, eyes fluttering shut with that soft sound of pleasure. He couldn't resist kissing her at that, and she had only just begun to return the gentle kiss when he slid his hand inside her bodice. She gasped and moved instinctively, soft and fluid under his fingertips.

"Numair," Daine choked out, pulling back a little. "We should wait. That... the priest..."

"I'm sure he won't mind,"

"He invited us back to eat breakfa... gods curse it, Numair, let me finish a sentence!"

Her husband laughed and made a great show of smoothing her skirt back to neatness. Smiling ruefully, he kissed her nose. "I still think he'd understand."

"I'd feel bad." Daine confessed, reaching up and coiling a lock of her husband's hair in her fingers. "And you would, too. The poor man doesn't have anyone. We do," she smiled irresistably and kissed him, suddenly burning with passionate happiness. "We have each other forever!"

Numair returned her kiss, returning the fierceness of it before catching her cheek and slowly, tenderly, drawing her back. Daine didn't draw back this time, but relaxed in his arms. Her whole body felt soft and gentle against him. It was a kiss that bled into their heartbeats, binding each slow flutter to the next until even their blood seemed to hum as one. Daine sighed and kissed her husband's cheek, resting her own against his.

"You finally believe me, don't you?" She murmured, not opening her eyes. A strange, tender peace echoed in her voice. "You believe that I'll stay with you forever."


	16. After Death

The Lioness, Champion of Tortall, was starting to loiter after receiving a summons from her supposed patron King Jonathan. It wasn't that she didn't think he would have something important to say exactly, but Jon had an annoying habit of sending for her just to get her to bow to some snotty diplomat. The man (it was always a man) would study her physique, pretend not to be surprised at her obvious muscles and manly way of walking, stare openly at her violet eyes, and then – long minutes later! – think to bow back. Alanna grit her teeth and suffered it, because Jon insisted that they had to impress these men for... oh, trade relations, or safe passage, or... or...

... but she only had to impress them with the fact that she was actually a competent warrior. She didn't have to impress them with her punctuality. In fact, the more diplomats she met, the more she was gaining a reputation for being tardy.

"If I turn up on time, then they'll think it's not really me." She pointed out to Jon, quite reasonably. He rubbed his hair into a messy peak and gave her a long-suffering look.

"They'll report back to their masters that it's fine to attack Tortall, as long as they do it before breakfast or while you're training." He muttered, and Alanna cuffed him cheerfully.

"You forgot to mention when I'm at the Dove!" She grinned, "So we still have an advantage!"

Jon had dismissed her with a barbed comment about her always _leaving_ quickly enough, and Alanna had ducked away.

Still, for all her snide comments, Alanna knew the difference between a political summons and something that needed her urgent attendance. That was why, when the fire roared into blue flames and Jon's voice urgently bid her to run to his wing of the palace, she didn't walk: she ran.

Jon was sitting in his antechamber, but not on the official ornate chair he was supposed to use for audiences. He was squatting on the step below it, looking utterly exhausted with waxen, pale skin and blazing blue eyes. He looked so dejected that Alanna took a minute to realise there was anyone else in the room.

"Mithros spear!" She exclaimed, and crouched down beside him. "What's happened?"

He looked up, and there was something utterly bewildered in his eyes. "I don't know." He gestured to the other man who was in the room, and his voice rose to a harsh peak. "I can't make myself believe it. Him. Alanna, you have to tell me if I'm going mad."

"It's true," The man said, and his voice was panicked. "Your majesty... Sir Lady... I wouldn't lie to you."

"About what?" Alanna rounded on him, and her eyes blazed with anger that was mostly from the fact that she was completely lost. "What's going on?"

The man took a breath and started to speak, but then choked and took another breath. His clothes were dank and ragged, as if he had travelled for days without resting, but beneath the dirt they were made from bright, gaudy fabrics. His eyes skitted about the room as if it were filled with insects. "She's dead. The girl you sent, the one with the dragon. I swear it. She died."

"Who..." Alanna took in his clothing and felt her blood running cold. He was one of the players, and that meant...

...oh gods. The dragon?

"Oh no," She breathed, sitting on the step beside Jon. "No, that's not right."

"That's not all of it." Jon said grimly, and waved a hand blindly at the player. His voice took on a hoarse, icy command. "Tell her how she died."

"The mage killed her. Master Salmalin."

Alanna burst out in a laugh so harsh it tore at her throat, and she choked in genuine pain. "No." She shook her head, waiting for someone to burst out of the next room and laugh at their festival joke. It was ridiculous. "Jon, you're not going mad. That messenger is. There's no way..."

"Were you there, my lady?" The player suddenly cut in, sounding furious. His eyes blazed green in his filthy skin, and he took a step forward with his hands clenched. "I was there. I saw the whole thing. I came racing back here with my horse's feet spelled to make me faster to tell you what happened, and I swear I will tell you the whole story whether you believe it or not before I take one step outside of this room."

"Gods," Alanna gaped at Jon, who was staring blankly at the man. "He really believes he's telling the truth."

"Sir, will you let me cast a truth spell on you?" Jon asked slowly, standing up and rooting behind his throne for a small packet of dust. The man looked offended, but shrugged and nodded. Alanna scowled, folded her arms, and then at the last moment dug into the bag and dusted her fingers with double the amount of dust the king had used.

"You might have practiced the lie, but I'll be looking." She said fiercely. "I may not have seen anything, but I've been friends with those two for nearly ten years and I know for a fact that they would never hurt each other. And Numair doesn't even like killing his enemies, let alone..."

"Let him speak." Jon said, with barbed impatience. Alanna bit off her own words with a snap. The player studied them both for a moment, and then sat down on the tile floor and began his story in a flat, dead voice.

"We were setting up the stage for the last night of the Lady's banquets. Well, we didn't know it was the last night, or else we would have been more creative, but we were setting up the curtains and the scenery and the rope. She was setting up the rope. Not the girl... Daine. She wasn't allowed to even see the rope before she danced on it. The Lady insisted on that, ever since she caught the girl dancing with a safety cord on her wrist. I reckon she saw it as cheating, for after that she took a special interest in the rope being more dangerous than usual.

So the girl was wandering around with the snake dancer, looking half asleep, and the Lady was up on the balcony ordering her servants to do this and that with the rope, and then take it down and try again, and then... well, she was making such a noise about it, and in the end the girl plants her hands on her hips and just shouts up, rudely-like, "Why don't you just get a spider to spin a thread across, and watch for how long I can dance on it before it snaps?"

The Lady pretended to ignore her, but you could see that she was upset by the whole thing, for after that her servants could not get anything right. She shouted and snapped at them so much that the girl finally stops staring up at the whole mess, and makes her way over to the stairs to climb her way up. On the way up there – the stairs were in another tower, you see, like a maze – she must have met up with Master Salmalin, for they both appeared on the balcony together.

"I'm glad you're up here," Daine says in a loud voice to the Lady, "I want you to hear this, too." And then she turns to the man and her voice is so angry, like they'd already been fighting on the stairs. And she says, "I told you, I won't do it any more. I'm in the middle of your stupid game, and I don't see why I have to risk my neck all the time just so you can make soft eyes at that bitch."

That's the word she used, and the whole room seemed to gasp at the same time. Half of them were shocked that such a word was used near the Lady, who we all respect, and the other half were looking at the mage wondering if... well, putting two and two together, honestly. He'd been seen alone with the Lady more than once, speaking in low voices, and I heard that one time they came out of a chamber together and her dress was all ripped. The girl had already fought with him about him making eyes at other women, but we all thought she meant the dancers in the troupe. Not...

...anyway, the Lady sees that the whole room is watching her, and she goes so red that it looked like she was all one colour, next to her fire coloured dress. And she stares at Master Salmalin and says, "Are you going to let her speak to me like that?"

And he turns to Daine and catches at her shoulder, just gently, and he goes, "Daine, you're angry at me, not at the Lady." And she snaps back right quickly:

"Of course I'm angry at you! All this time you were lying to me! You never told me that you and her... that you both..." and she wiped her eyes and couldn't even look at either of them, but the whole room is completely silent now.

Even though most of the guards and nobles from the court had arrived by then, they were all watching. And we were all waiting for someone to deny it – for the Lady to laugh it off, or for the man to argue – but it was far worse. They just looked at each other, and they didn't say anything, and we all knew it was true. And gods, you could almost hear the girl's heart breaking.

"I hate you," She whispered it, but we all heard it, and suddenly she was screaming and beating her hands against his chest, this tiny girl against a man who never moved, or tried to defend himself or comfort her. And he never even looked at her, not properly. He just kept looking at the Lady, and she looked back with such a strange expression on her face. And then Daine stops screaming and starts pleading instead, and it was disgusting to hear it. "All the years we've spent together," she said, and "I thought you loved me," And then the accusations, "Did you see her face every time you kissed me?" and "Did you only want me because you couldn't have her?"

"Yes." He said, to that last one, and you could have heard a pin drop in the room. Daine wasn't speaking now, just collapsed on the floor crying, and yet he was still so cold and emotionless, and the Lady was still smiling that strange smile, and the girl starts getting up.

"I risked my life for you," She said, and starts walking to the edge of the balcony like she's going to dance on the rope, only the rope isn't there and she's facing the wrong way. He reaches out then, as if he wants to stop her, and when he grabs her she struggles and he throws her into the recess in the wall to keep her away from the edge. Only they keep fighting, because she's so upset she's just trying to pull away, and he's not trying to fight back, only keep her still, and then...

...then, he...

...he looks up, and looks at the Lady, and she says a few words. Just a few words, but something so strange crosses his face.

He goes completely still for a moment, and the next time Daine struggles he takes the girl by the shoulders, and this time instead of throwing her into the wall he throws her the other way, towards the Lady. Her foot catches on the edge of the balcony and then she rolls over the edge. She screams, horrible it was, and clutches at the edge of the platform, and for a moment she catches on and looks up at him to help her. He just stares back, and for the first time there was emotion on his face. Not anger, or fear, but just this horrible look of... relief.

He doesn't move. No-one dares breathe.

And then she falls. She screams, but only for a second, for it only took a second for her to fall, and then she hit the ground so hard you could hear..."

He stopped speaking abruptly and swallowed, looking violently sick. A few feet away, frozen by the vivid honesty of the man's words, both Jon and Thayet looked white as sheets.

"What happened then?" Alanna demanded in a voice that cracked with emotion. "Tell us!"

The man looked flatly at her. "She died. I hope... gods, I pray she was dead before we even ran to her body. No-one should live long enough to feel those wounds."

"And Numair?" Jon's voice was just as broken as his Champion's, although he rallied enough to sound sceptical. The man rubbed at his forehead, looking suddenly pensive.

"That's why I rushed back. Because of what happened next. The exact moment the girl hits the ground, he... changes."

"Changes?" Alanna frowned, and rubbed at her hair in an unconscious echo of Jon's anxious motion. The whole story was too ridiculous for her to take in, and so she couldn't make any sense of someone suddenly feeling the rushing awareness of death in their own hands. Her mind screamed the word _accident_ at her, because she refused to even consider _murder,_ and those two words seemed to be the only options. The truth spell told her that the man was not lying. She gulped back a rising feeling of desperate denial and managed, "Of course he was upset. He..."

"No, he was laughing." The man interrupted, and they all three flinched. "He laughed and laughed, in front of all those people who are screaming and weeping at the girl's falling, and then he drops down in a dead faint. He was still unconscious when I left, I hear."

"In the castle cells?" Jon asked automatically. The messenger shook his head slowly, as if he hadn't meant to divulge this information.

"N-o. The Lady asked that he be taken into her rooms. She said she wanted to nurse him back to health. It's her right, as the lady of the household, but..." He shrugged, "...but looking at her eyes, the way they shone, no-one was taken in. The rest of the troupe left when I did, but they were just going to send a speaking spell. I thought it best to come myself. I thought... a speaking spell can be easily meddled with. I'm here to tell you what really happened."

"That a loving man murdered his closest friend in cold blood, to impress a woman he had a tryst with ten years ago?" Alanna snorted derisively. "That's what really happened, is it?"

"That's what I saw with these two eyes." The man said, folding his arms and matching her stubbornness."And you can see I'm telling the truth. Unless I'm mad, but then so are all the other people who saw it."

"I'd take those odds."

"Alanna," Jon stopped her furious words with a raised hand, and gave her a warning glance before nodding wearily at the messenger. "Thank you, sir. Please ask my page for rooms and some payment on your way out... and if you would kindly stay within the castle grounds for a few weeks, I'll add another purse to your reward."

The man bowed, and ducked out with a last withering look at the Lioness. As soon as he was out of the room, Alanna rounded on the king and nearly shouted, "You can't possibly believe..."

"I'm sending you to find out." He interrupted, with sudden energy in his blue eyes. Alanna's eyes widened, and a small grin opened her lips.

"Yes, that's a good idea." She said slowly, and unconsciously checked the hilt of her sword. Pain crossed her face for a moment, and she lowered fingers that were suddenly trembling. "Do you think she's really...dead?"

"It's possible." Jon said heavily, and sank his chin into his hands. "He wasn't lying. There wasn't a single trace of untruth in that entire speech. Not about Numair sleeping with the Lady, not about Daine fighting with him, and not about the way she hit the ground. I was watching so closely, hoping that, since he's an actor..." he shuddered and looked down at the tiles. "I could believe all of it, but not all in one go. I know their tempers and I know Numair's past... since I had to question him when he fled Carthak, I know more about his history than I'd ever admit. I can imagine him keeping it secret from her. And I can imagine her finding out and taking it... badly."

"Can you imagine him throwing her off a balcony?" Alanna shoved at the king's shoulder, too frustrated to think about the proprietry of doing that. "You stupid idiot! He would probably jump off after her to try to catch her!"

"When people are angry..." Jon started, and then shook his head. "No, you're right. I can't imagine it. But I can just about imagine an accident."

"I'll find out." Alanna said with clear determination. "I'll go to find Numair and beat the truth out of him if I have to, but I'll find out what really happened."

"Please do." Jon reached up and squeezed her hand, and for a moment Alanna returned the comforting gesture and wished her throat would stop burning with tears.

In that instant, when they both allowed themselves to feel grief, the sorrow was almost overwhelming. Daine had been beloved, a companion who had grown into a woman smiling and laughing at their side. Her family held so many people that she brought whole families together, making cousins out of Conte and Trebond offspring alike and holding her own amongst the very best and worst the realm had thrown at her.

It seemed unfair that she could be erased by an accident; it was unthinkable that she was destroyed by violence; it was impossible that she had died at all. And yet, in that moment, they both allowed each other to consider it. In silence, they comforted each other and then drew apart, reminding the other that they didn't really believe that the man's honest words were true.

"Be quick." Jon said, in a stronger voice. "I'll hide the bad news for as long as I can."


	17. Reset

Arram Draper woke up with the sun burning the side of his face. Groaning, he turned over and pulled the blanket up over his eyes, sinking back into sleep with the grudging obstinacy of lazy men worldwide. After a few minutes the warm beam of sunshine made the woollen blanket too hot, but it wasn't until the fabric was almost smothering the air from his lungs that the man pushed it away.

He heard a laugh, low and liquid. "You never were a morning person."

Arram pushed himself onto his elbows and shook off the heaviness of a rude awakening. It took a few seconds for his eyes to clear, but he took in the important details. The room was large, the heavy curtains had been pushed back, and there was a woman sitting beside the fireplace. A gentle blaze flickered, a soft brown fur rug cosseted her feet, and there was a covered tray on the small table beside an empty chair. The man's stomach rumbled, and the chair looked comfortable enough to placate his still-sleepy legs after they made the arduous journey away from the bed.

When he sat down the woman smiled and uncovered the tray. She served him with comfortable ease and a friendly silence, and Arram relaxed against the soft chair cushions. He felt ill, empty, as if he had been sick for a long time. His head ached fiercely and he couldn't stop himself from shivering. The woman frowned when he dragged his chair a little closer to the fire, but said nothing. Arram cleared his throat.

"Emma, how long have I been sick?" He asked.

The transformation was immediate. Her face brightened, and even though she tried to hide her smile small teeth peeked out from beneath her lip. "Not long. A week, maybe a little longer. You're awake now."

"I..." He cleared his throat and looked around at the large room. "This might sound odd, but: I don't know where I am."

"You don't?" Her eyebrows shot up, "But this is... darling, this is our home. You must remember!" She tittered, as if the whole thing were a joke, and covered her mouth with an apologetic hand when he looked wide-eyed at her. "Arram, you must know that! Do you... don't you know who I am?"

"Of course I do." He scratched his nose awkwardly and risked a small smile. "Emma. You look..." He swallowed and looked away. The word older crossed his mind, but he knew that it must be wrong. His mental image of the woman was young... but he knew he had seen this older, stronger woman before, as well. The room was completely unknown to him, but Emma seemed to fit. He remembered her this way.

"Oh, I'm not wearing any of my cosmetic." She waved a hand glibly and reached forward, taking his hand in fingers that seemed too long and thin. "I've been so worried about you, my dear. But you're awake now." She said it rather emphatically, as if it was important, and then added, "You hit your head."

He'd hit his head? Answers fell into place, and yet the detail that Arram needed to know had been mentioned so offhandedly he felt a surge of irritation, rising up like bile, like hatred, so sharply that he had to draw in a breath. He had to reach for a stick of firewood and throw it into the hearth so the woman wouldn't be able to see it on his face.

The violence of the emotion made no sense to him. None of it made any sense to him. And Emma was being so vague! Why did he expect her to be more direct? She had always been absentminded, but for some reason it felt utterly wrong to him.

"Emma," He managed through gritted teeth, "I don't remember anything. I don't know... where I am, or why you're here, or what's happened... I can't remember anything. You say this is our home but how can it possibly be? We're not..." He stumbled over his own words and looked down at his hand, and ran his hand over the wedding band there in stunned silence.

Yes, he was married. He remembered that now.

"You hit your head," Emma said again, picking up the empty breakfast tray. When she stood up she kissed his forehead tenderly, and Arram wondered if she had always been so tall. A warm smile crossed her face at his look of confusion, and she repeated the few words that had made her so happy: "But you're awake now."

As soon as he was alone Arram sank back into the bed, rubbing his pounding forehead and trying to breathe evenly. It was a nightmare. A horror story to make children play safe games. Don't hit your head, or you'll forget your own name!

But he knew his name. He was Arram.

It was the rest of his life that he couldn't remember. There was nothing to pin it on. There wasn't a single detail he could think of which would bring all of his life crashing back. There was just darkness. Cold, piercing darkness.

He shivered and pulled the blanket up to his chin. It tickled his beard, and he forced himself to run long fingers across his face. Too old. Too old, and yet it felt correct. He was older than he thought he should be, but then so had Emma been. He could remember meeting her in the market, wondering if she was one of Ozorne's spies hiding behind a limpid smile. And then she had met his gaze, and he remembered desiring her. He remembered taking her hand.

He remembered loving her. But even the love felt... wrong. Sordid. Shameful. Cheap.

His wife, who he lived with in these enormous, bright rooms, must have meant more to him than that. She must have done something or said something to make him want to stay. She must have convinced him that he could stop running and hiding. There must have been something about her that made him feel safe.

But try as he might, Arram couldn't remember what it had been.

He couldn't remember anything.

"Numair told me not to go to the tower," Daine said, her chin set stubbornly, "But I think it's a good idea."

The hermit didn't answer her, or even look up from his herb garden, so the girl took a step closer and tried again. "It's the only thing I have left to do. I'm fair sure I've searched every inch of that keep with the bats and the mice and the... the otters looking in the well even, and... will you look at me?"

"Why?" Cieran didn't move away from his parsley. "It's clear that you're talking to yourself. If you wanted my advice you would be polite enough to ask me for it, not try to coax me into nodding my head so you can pretend I'm abetting your plan."

Daine stopped grinding her teeth and sighed. It was an impatient sound, and Cieran coughed to hide a laugh. After a week in his company the girl had learned how he liked his tea leaves brewed, what time he awoke in the mornings and what kind of seed he left in the garden for the birds... but she had absolutely no notion of what he was thinking. The hermit knew how much it irritated her. If Daine hadn't been such a curious person then she would have argued with him, but her stubborn pride forced her to bide her time.

"Sir," She managed at last, "Please can you help me decide what I should do?"

He turned, smiling sweetly. "Are you confused, my dear?"

"No!" She retorted, and then blushed and looked at her folded arms. "Well... not really, but..."

"There's nothing shameful in being confused." Cieran patted her shoulder and laughed at her mute incredulity. "Let's brew some chamomile leaves, daughter. Life is less confusing when you have a cup of tea."

"Spoken like a true apothecary." Daine muttered, and followed with grudging steps when he began his slow meander back to the clearing. "But... Cieran, can you just tell me if...?"

"I don't know anything about the keep." The hermit hummed a jaunty tune as he fetched a jar of dried leaves from the shelf. "He could be dead for all I know. I'm not a fortune teller."

The girl flinched and shrank back, looking sickened. The hermit patted her head like a pet and then caught her chin, comforting and stern at the same time. "If you know what I am, daughter, then you know that there are rules. I show you the lightness in my being. If you want to see the darkness, then by all means keep pestering me. My answers will not be... kind." He met her horrified eyes for a second, and then grinned and began humming the tune again. Daine breathed out rapidly when he turned away.

"I'm sorry." All of the stubbornness was gone from her voice. "I just wanted to know if Numair needs my help."

The hermit looked up sharply, his dark eyes staring out of the window. "There's a stranger on the trail. Why don't you go and meet them?"

Daine scowled, forgetting to be contrite. "Why should I? You have fifty pilgrims bothering you every week."

"Maybe she'll have your answers."

The girl sighed and shook her head. Normally she would have seen the serious expression in the hermit's eyes, but her worry and frustration had made her feel so distracted that even the bird calls seemed to be mocking her. Cieran's suggestion felt barbed, as if he were deliberately trying to get rid of her.

Although Daine knew that the man cared about her, she sometimes wondered if his gentle affection was just a part of his faith. She ate meals with him, and brought him fish when she visited the river. When she returned late at night, exhausted and frozen from draining all her magic to search the endless mountains, he hugged her until she was warm and her shivering stopped, and tucked her into her bed as if she were a child. And yet there was a distance between them, which sometimes seemed so tense that Daine felt scared of the moment when it would snap.

"I'm going to the tower." She said. The man didn't answer, but he shrugged and his moonlike face looked empty.

Cieran watched her walk away, with her bow slung over one shoulder and a quiver full of useless arrows swinging from her left hand. His rheumy eyes followed the girl's shape for longer than his sight allowed. She faded, a soft moving fog which ebbed and flowed in the sunlight long after the sound of her footsteps faded. Then the man crouched down in the dirt, brushing soft dust away from a seedling whose single struggling leaf glowed bright green against the brown.

He was aware of the stranger. He could sense her hesitation as she climbed the trail, and her wonder at the offerings which had been left there. Humming the gentle tune to himself, he crouched lower in the dirt and blew gently on the seedling. Its stem thickened and swelled, growing stronger and brighter, until finally it was large enough for the hermit to see it clearly. He ignored the sound of footsteps, fascinated by the delicate blue veins which the sunlight painted on the seedling's budding leaves. After a few minutes the footsteps paused, and he heard a huff of irritated air, and the visitor turned away.

Well, there was no point in her staying, and she couldn't keep walking. It was just a dead end. A fetid, ruined temple in a dingy clearing in the mountains. Her armoured boots split the rotting branches that littered the ground, and Cieran heard her muttering about the stench of decaying weeds.

He smiled and stood up. At his feet, the seedling burst into bloom.


	18. Chasing Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your reviews! I'm so happy you're enjoying the story!

As always, the page who knocked on the door of their suite beckoned to the lady, and Emma bowed her long neck down to hear his private whisper. It seemed shockingly intimate, and Arram wondered if he should say something. It seemed to him that there could be nothing these men had to say that he should not hear – even if he had only married into his high position, he still bore the title of a Lord. And for some reason, that social impropriety made him more irritated than the literal crassness of their whispering voices. It wasn't as if they were wooing his wife; there were so many messengers and guards that the rumours of affairs would be laughable. But the suspicion of infidelity didn't upset the man as much as he thought it ought.

Emma frowned and glanced around, and for a moment Arram felt unsure of himself. It happened a few times an hour, a sense that he had made some misstep. The woman waved the servant away and forced a smile onto her red lips. It was her fake smile, which her husband dutifully returned.

"A visitor has arrived in my castle. I have to go and see what she wants." Emma said breezily. "I should be back by this afternoon."

For the past days Arram hadn't challenged her strangely ambiguous days, but he had been irked by the way that the page had stared at him as he whispered, and so he said in exactly the same cool tone, "I'll come with you."

Her smile turned sweet, like burned sugar sticking to the sides of a pan. "No. No, my dear, I don't think you're well enough. You should stay here and rest."

"I feel fine!" He said harshly. "I..."

"Do you want to risk infecting others with your sickness? Our courtiers? Our children?"

The shrillness in her tone made him blanch. "I don't have any children." He said, absolutely certain, and then he faltered and rubbed his face with one hand. "...we don't... do we?"

"No, we don't." She patted his free hand sympathetically. "But you had to ask! Surely you see that you're still not well?"

"I feel fine." He repeated stubbornly, but retreated back to the fireplace to stare into the flames. After a few moments he heard the door shut, and felt his shoulders relax. Emma was like a thorn in his side, a book full of memories he was supposed to recall, and her constant gibes set his teeth on edge. He had felt so sure of himself until she had lied to him, and then she acted as if his confusion were his own fault. Ugh!

He had been confined to this room for a week now – he assumed it was a week, since the days had become a blur of sunrises and sunsets in a cold, iron sky. Emma's castle was surrounded by cliffs and the drop from the window was sheer. As much as Arram squinted he'd never been able to see the base of the cliff, and so he spent his days staring at the hot fire or the icy sky. Emma brought him books from her library, but her taste ran to the insipid. Mainly, he spent his time trying to gather the tatters of his mind together, like patching up a ruined lace gown.

Arram frowned. He'd thought it again: Emma's castle, Emma's library... he never thought of any of this place as his own. It occurred to him that Emma had never corrected him. He added it to his mental list of things that made no sense, and then sighed and rubbed his forehead wearily.

A noise made him jump, and he took a nervous step back as something rapped against the window. The shutter held, and after a moment the latch began to turn. Arram swallowed and prayed to the gods that the lock held. His racing heart leapt into his throat, and he realised the main reason for his discomfort was the fact that his left boot was in the fire, and was starting to smoulder. He yelped and beat out the flames, blinded by the smoke, hopping on the other foot until the heat subsided. When his stinging eyes cleared he heard a soft laugh.

A girl was sitting on the window ledge, watching him with her hands pressed over her lips. She couldn't quite smother the laughter or hide her smile, but when she spoke her words were sympathetic. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!" And then she burst into giggles again, shaking her head as if to apologise even as she laughed. Arram folded his arms and ignored the pain in his foot.

"How did you get in?" He demanded, thinking of the cliff below the open window. The girl shrugged and glanced down at the sheer drop as if she had only just noticed it.

"I thought she would never leave!" She told him, rolling her eyes towards the door. Arram's eyes flicked towards it too, wondering if there was anyone outside who could help him. Judging by the girl's simple clothes and impertinent attitude she wasn't a courtier. Arram decided she must be a thief, someone who could scale the sheer cliff without breaking a sweat. He took a step towards the door and then paused, mentally shaking his head. If he summoned the guards to capture this slip of a girl then he'd never hear the end of it. He didn't feel threatened by her, and he could see that the girl was unarmed. If he dealt with her himself, perhaps it would prove to everyone that he was well enough to leave this room.

"You've been watching Emma?" He asked the girl cautiously, wondering if she was an assassin. Again, she shrugged, but this time a strangely vulnerable expression crossed her eyes. Arram marvelled at her openness; she didn't seem to hide anything. She would be very bad at lying, he decided.

"She's been watching you like a hawk ever since you passed out," The girl's voice turned very matter-of-fact. "And Cieran didn't tell me you'd been sick, or else I'd've come sooner and made sure you were alright. It would've been worth the telling off you'd've given me. I'm sorry I wasn't here."

"That's alright," He answered automatically, and then shook his head. "I mean... no, I don't think..."

She frowned and jumped down from the window ledge, and he noticed that she was barefoot. "I know, but I had to come." Then she was moving towards him, and she was so assured that Arram forgot to step away until she was a foot away, looking up with her unnaturally bold grey eyes. "I had to see you."

He caught her shoulders and for a split second some memory sparked in his mind, telling him how the muscles in her arms would feel even before his fingers sank into the soft cotton sleeves. He grasped at the fragment but it had gone, and he felt a surge of anger at it. His mind was taunting him with these images, making him chase shadows and never letting him see the things that were right before his eyes.

The girl was the first shred of the real world which he had seen. Emma would have kept her away, he knew. Whatever the thief's game was, she was at least a living breathing person who could leave the confines of the castle whenever she chose. He could have escorted her to the door, and given her to the guards who loitered there to stop him leaving, but he was as thirsty for answers as he could be for water in a desert. She didn't shrug his hands off, but looked up at him with an uncertain smile.

"Are you alright?" She asked. "You look... odd. Different."

"Don't say things like that! I don't know who you are." His voice sounded feeble in the small room, but the girl recoiled as if he had hit her.

"Don't tease me." She whispered, her face pale. He shook his head.

"I'm not in the habit of teasing strangers. Especially thieves who break into my rooms and spy on me."

Those huge grey eyes narrowed, and she choked out a laugh that was so close to a sob that Arram's own throat burned. She reached out to touch his face, more by instinct than by any real design, and when he stopped her she turned away and wrapped her arms around her stomach.

"You said this would happen." She croaked, "Why do you always have to be such an insufferable know it all?"

She was a thief, and an intruder, but Arram pitied her. He didn't feel anything else for her, which made him think that she was lying – surely, if he had... had known this girl before, or... or let her speak to him in that intimate, unconscious way... then he would remember some shred of that emotion?

The story must have gotten out. Emma had tried to hide her husband's memory loss, but of course the guards and the servants would gossip. The news would reach the town, and then cunning, pretty little creatures like this girl would seize their chance. Tell a sob story, pretend at an affair, and suddenly he wouldn't know which blackmailer to pay off first. Oh, climbing up the cliff had been a good trick, a nice way to catch him off guard, but the rest of it was all so much play-acting.

"Numair..." She started, catching her breath and turning around. He smiled thinly.

"That's not my name, girl."

"Arram." She corrected herself immediately, then folded her arms and tilted her head to one side, unimpressed with his unconscious nod. Her stubborn chin was raised, and she tapped her foot a little as if she were thinking. "Gods. Arram. My name is Daine. Veralidaine. Do you remember either of those words? And how about your A B Cs, Arram? Or your time with Ozorne? How much have they taken this time?" Her voice rose by the end, a little hysterical, and Arram could hear footsteps outside of the door.

"For Shakith's sake, lower your voice." He hissed. "Do you want to be arrested?"

She smiled slowly, sickly. "They won't see me."

"Veralidaine the ghost." He muttered sarcastically, and she laughed bitterly. Again, there was something in that laugh which made him want to comfort her, but at the same time he stayed exactly where he was, refusing to let his hands reach out to her. If she knew about Ozorne, then she could be far more dangerous than a simple blackmailer. The words came out in a rush, "How did you know about Carthak?"

"You told me." She laid it down like a challenge, but there were tears shining in her eyes."I know everything about you. I know things you've never told another living person. Dear Mynoss, I know how fast your heart beats. And you don't even remember my name."

"It's Veralidaine." He watched her carefully, feeling his certainty trickling away. If she was lying then she was the best actress in Tortall. She flinched and shook her head, backing away from him as if the word had burned her.

"No," She whispered, "You always called me Daine."

"Maybe if I got to know you better," he tried to sound soothing, "if..."

"Know me better!" She shrieked, and then covered her mouth, her eyes darting towards the door. The footsteps had subsided, but she still made an effort to calm herself down. Wrapping her hands around her elbows defensively, she took a deep breath. "Tell me... tell me why you're here."

"You're the one who climbed in through the window!"

"Please." She couldn't meet his eyes. "I can't help you if I don't know who you think you are."

"Help me?" He laughed, although he didn't mean it. He wanted her to drop the act and be honest with him, and everything she said made him feel so uncomfortable that he almost longed for her to be caught. It wasn't just her bizarre words and naked emotions, it was the way that her huge eyes kept seeking his out in disbelief, as if at any moment she expected him to recognise her or accept her stories. And something else made him wrap his arms around himself and shiver, but he would never admit that fear, even to himself. He glanced out of the window and then wondered if this girl really could be an assassin, because...

"... you still didn't tell me how you knew about..."

"Ozorne's dead." The girl said, as if she had read his mind. A very bitter note crept into her voice and she muttered, "I bet Emma didn't bother telling you that. But he's dead. He's not sending anyone to hunt you down."

"He is?" Arram heard the relief in his own voice and hated it. The girl nodded and perched on the edge of a chair, not looking away from his eyes. Her hands were trembling, the man noticed in a detached way. Climbing through the window must have worn her out after all. "How did he die?"

She smiled then, and shook her head. "You wouldn't believe me."

"I don't believe anything you say." He retorted quickly.

"Oh? Then why are you asking questions?" She raised an eyebrow and looked down, fiddling with a stray gold thread from the chair's cushion. "Seems to me like you've got no-one else to ask, Arram."

He felt irked. She had no right to be so free with his first name. "I am the Lord Salydis." He said coldly, drawing himself up. "You're right that my name is Arram, and that I came from Carthak, but I'm sure everybody knows that. I'm also sure everyone knows that I hit my head last week, and lost my memory. The healers assure me that it will return, so if you're thinking of blackmailing me, you should probably reconsider."

"You're not the Lord Salydis." She returned flatly. "He's dead."

"My wife assures me that I am quite alive." He made a point of letting her see the wedding ring, the only piece of real evidence which he could cling to. The girl's eyes flicked to it, and she smiled mockingly.

"That's rather an old piece of jewellery for the Lord Salydis to make his vows over." She remarked, and shook her head with mock wonder. "It looks to me like you picked it up from the side of the road."

What a strange thing for her to say! Arram felt his hand closing over the ring foolishly, as if he wanted to hide it. Something about it felt solid and true in a way that nothing else in his life did. Even the exquisite clothes he wore didn't seem to suit him, but the wedding ring had always felt correct. Now that the girl had said her piece he could feel the tarnish under his fingertips. The girl saw his uncertainty, and her mocking expression faded. There was something else in her eyes, deep and endless, and when she took his hand it felt as real and proper as the beaten metal of his ring.

For the first time since he had woken up a week ago, Arram felt as if he were a part of the living world. How did she do it? She was just a slip of a girl, no more striking or clever than any other person, and yet in a few brief minutes she had cut into his heart so many times that he felt raw. She hadn't just read his fears, she seemed to understand them. Gods, she seemed to care. And her tears weren't pitiable, they were sincere, and for the first time Arram realised that she was crying for him, not for herself.

Who was she? What kind of strange sylph had come to haunt him?

"Don't fret." She whispered. "I'll get your memories back."

"Are you real?" He asked, feeling as if he were being dragged into a whirlpool of shadows. She nodded and he felt the coolness of her tears as they fell onto their linked hands, the warmth of her lips when she kissed his fingertips. And then the footsteps returned and the guards pounded on the door, and when he looked around to answer their shouted questions her warmth disappeared like smoke. By the time the guards opened the door, she was gone.


	19. What If

Alanna trudged slowly down the mountain trail, leading her horse on a short reign so that the animal wouldn't wander too close to the cliff edge. She could have ridden, of course, but she needed the extra time walking gave her to think, or at least, to stew. The nobles had greeted her with barely concealed disdain, refusing to let her past the first atrium where she paced, refusing to sit on one of the uncomfortable looking seats and growing increasingly claustrophobic in the dark space, until the doors had opened.

Even then she had not been allowed into the castle itself, but the Lady Salydis had come out to meet her, at least. The woman seemed friendly, if a little distracted. She apologised at length for the shoddy welcome, and then explained that a strange sickness had infected the castle. Even her husband, she explained, had been struck by the peculiar illness. She could not risk infecting the feudal villages, who often had to wait for days before healers could cross the treacherous mountain passes to help them. With a heavy heart (the lady said, looking vaguely past Alanna's shoulder) she had decided to quarantine the castle, and forbade anyone from crossing the threshold.

"What about the players?" Alanna had asked, forgetting propriety in her desperation to get an answer from the implacable woman before she backed away. The lady had sighed, cut her eyes up a little, and shook her head.

"You're here about that poor girl, aren't you?" She breathed in a voice that was as cloying as honey. The guards averted their eyes as the woman raised her hand to her face, and caught her breath in a show of remembered horror. "It was so horrible. I can't bear to think of it. They all left the next day and… and then the disease struck, and… and we burned the body." She finished, looking ashamed. "There wasn't even time for a burial."

"What about the man? I… heard she was killed by a man." Alanna stumbled over the question, not wanting to give away too much of the story. She desperately hoped that this woman would tell her something different, proving that it was a lie. The lady's eyes were sharp, but soft with genuine regret.

"Yes, he pushed her off the balcony onto the stone floor." She shuddered and for a second her eyes flicked upwards, towards the keep. Then she saw Alanna's eye on her and flushed, tearing her unconscious gaze away. For the very first time since she had laid eyes on the woman, Alanna believed that she was telling the absolute truth. Her blood ran cold while the woman stuttered with pale horror: "I still cannot work out why he… how he could…"

"So he's in prison." The knight guessed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the guards signalling to another, and they all moved a little closer. Unconsciously, the knight's hand drifted closer to the hilt of her sword, and she saw the men's stances change in response. Before the tension could break the noble woman shook her head slightly, and then looked Alanna full in the eye. As the guards stood down, her voice grew harsh and cruel.

"He didn't survive the night." This time there was no music in her deadened voice. "He passed out after she fell, and we locked him into my office while we worked out what to do with… with the people who were screaming, and the players left so quickly, like rats leaving a sinking ship…" She drew a shallow breath and smiled sickly. It looked obscene. "By the time we unlocked the door, the murderer had broken through the window and fallen to his own fate. Maybe he was trying to escape, maybe he jumped, but either way…" she shrugged and folded her arms. She looked as though she were daring Alanna to argue with her story, and the guards began to move forward again.

The knight swallowed and for a moment she couldn't breathe. She knew that the woman was lying. Every part of Lady Salydis' body screamed that she was an actress, performing a lie which she had practiced to complacency. Alanna also knew that if she questioned a single word of that lie, the guards would descend on her like wolves. She gulped back her furious objections and managed to choke out something: a polite farewell, her gratitude for the audience, or something equally banal. Then she was outside again, and the gates of the castle boomed shut behind her.

She was walking down the trail, swearing under her breath and trying to work out what to do next, when a shadow darted across the path. Alanna bit back an oath and drew her sword, startling a whinny from the horse who had been uncannily calm about the creature appearing out of the trees. Her heart pounding, Alanna spun around and stopped her arm with a desperate effort, seeing the blade trembling a few inches away from where the girl's neck would have been, had she not suddenly shrunk ten inches.

"Hullo," Daine said, her voice filled with hysterical laughter. "It is actually you, then."

"You're not dead." Alanna remarked in a voice which was remarkably cool, given that her heart was pounding great, aching pools of relief into every vein of her body. The girl shook her head and then started laughing helplessly. Throwing her arms around the knight's shoulders, she hugged her tightly and her laughter turned into a strange noise which was more like a cry of pure pain than simple tears. Alanna patted the girl's back awkwardly, then gave up trying to comfort her, peeled her away, and lead the snivelling wildmage and the horse off the trail into the trees. She could see a rudimentary campsite where Daine must have been watching the trail. Kitten was curled up by the remains of a bowl of stew, and she gave a sleepy chirp of greeting when she saw the knight.

"Start from the beginning." Alanna ordered, planting the girl beside the fire. Daine sniffled back her tears, nodded, and began to speak. She told a long, complicated tale which the knight could make little sense of, since her relief at finding out that both Daine and Numair were alive was making her blood roar in her ears. There was something about a tower, and a bet, and a strange presence, and…

"Why are all those people saying you're dead?" She interrupted, needing some kind of relief from her racing mind. A spark of anger flared in her eyes, and she added, "Why do they think Numair killed you?"

"We knew you wouldn't believe he could do that to me," Daine said, and her expression grew anxious as she took in the pale set of Alanna's jaw, "You didn't believe it, did you?"

"No." The woman lied, folding her arms so that the girl couldn't see the unconscious tremble in her hands. Honestly, it was too much to take in. "Of course I didn't!"

"Of course," Daine echoed in a soft voice, and for a moment she fell silent. They could both hear the unspoken question in that silence: if you didn't believe it, why are you here? But Daine was far too grateful to see Alanna to embarrass her with that question. Instead, she cleared her throat and started explaining what their plan had been, and how it had all gone well until Numair had fallen sick.

"I sneaked into his room this morning to see if he was alright," Daine said, her voice suddenly growing ragged. "And… he…" she choked and buried her head in her hands. Alanna drew a sharp breath, knowing that so much despair could only have one cause.

"Gods! He's not… dead?"

"No." Daine gulped and shook her head. In a confused, tearful mess, she explained what had happened when she broke into the castle that morning. Alanna stood agape, unable even to move for a few seconds as she took in the enormity of what the girl had just said. A thousand objections sprung to her lips, and she found it impossible to believe that it wasn't some kind of twisted joke her two friends were playing. But of course, it couldn't be. And Daine was weeping, sobbing into her hands like a child who cannot imagine more misery than the crouching, sick despair they had screamed themselves in to.

After a few paralyzed minutes, Alanna forced her hand to move forward and grip the girl's shoulder. Words still wouldn't come, but she felt a little comforted in the small human contact, and as Daine's tears began to ease she was aware that she was breathing. It was a strange thing to become aware of, but she focused on it until the real world seemed to ebb back. The sun was shining through the leaves, and the birds were singing, and somewhere in the castle their best friend was being held captive by a woman who had found a way to erase ten years of his life without a shred of regret. Alanna remembered the coy, defiant expression on the Lady's face, and the way that the guards had moved forward when she asked questions about Numair. They were all in on it! The only problem was… Daine still had no idea what 'it' actually was.

Alanna mulled over the problem for a long time, and then a look of determination crossed her face. The expression was so sudden, so fierce, that it shone with an almost happy twist on her lips and made her look disquietingly happy about the whole monstrous mess.

"Right." She said. "So that means that Numair is completely useless to us. We just need to think of a plan which doesn't involve him."

Daine was already shaking her head, and the knight rolled her eyes. "Daine, you're getting so fixated on helping Numair that you're forgetting why you came here."

"Don't say that!" The girl snapped, her eyes blazing. "If it wasn't for our mission we would have never come here!"

"And it would have happened to someone else." The woman retorted, losing her temper. "Someone who would have panicked and made rash decisions instead of keeping a cool head and fixing it!"

Daine drew a sharp breath, about to argue, and then released it in a frustrated huff and raised her hands, clearly forcing herself to breathe evenly. "Fine." She said through gritted teeth, "What is your plan?"

Alanna thought carefully, and chose her words tactfully. "I think we can agree that whatever has happened to Numair is tied up in all the other strange things which have been happening since you got here."

The girl nodded reluctantly, glancing up towards the castle and chewing her lip. "There is one thing," she said, "When we explored the tower there was something there. It was a spell, or a… oh, I don't know, a ghost?" She shrugged wryly at the fantastical word. Alanna, who had seen far more supernatural beings than she cared to admit, was far less inclined to dismiss the idea. Coming from a demigoddess who had been known to raise the dead, she thought wryly, such cynicism was rather uncalled for.

"Do you think the… the thing in the tower is taking Numair's memories away?"

"Well, he felt it more strongly than I did. He said that he felt it attack him." Daine gestured vaguely to her forehead. "I didn't feel anything. But after he said that, his memories disappeared more quickly and he got fair..." she looked at her hands, feeling guilty for saying such things about her friend but feeling that it was important, "He got fair frightened." She described the nightmares and the trance Numair had fallen into when building the simulacrum, reluctantly adding that the fears had all been about her, and that the first few memories he lost had also been about their time together.

"If they wanted him to be scared, then they chose the right target." Alanna mused. "It's quite obvious to most people that you're his weakness. Whoever was taking his memories might have known that and done it on purpose."

"Don't make me feel worse." Daine muttered, rubbing her temples wearily. The knight tapped her fingers together.

"I mean that whoever did this had seen you together." She said. "So they had to have been in the same room as you. Close enough to hear you talking, I'd say. And you say this plan to make a decoy and send you away from the castle happened after this magical attack?"

"I think so." Daine frowned. "Numair's always careful, though. I can't say for sure that he sent me away out of fear."

Still, she admitted as they continued talking, he didn't lose the rest of his memories until after she had disappeared, and he had fallen sick. She didn't need to remind Alanna that now the man could remember nothing at all about his life in Tortall. Both of them had needed to hide a shudder the first time she had related that detail. Every time Daine remembered his blank, indifferent eyes she had to bite back tears.

"What do you think she's doing with him?" She asked, unaware that her bitter thoughts were being spoken aloud. Alanna, still caught up in making her own plans, replied without thinking.

"She seemed scared of him."

"Oh, that doesn't mean anything. He scares me too, sometimes." Daine smiled wryly and looked back towards the castle. "The fact that Numair doesn't know how terrifying he can be makes him easier to love, and I know that woman was obsessed with him even before he killed me."

"You're worried about her seducing him?" Alanna cleared her throat, a little uncomfortably on this very feminine landscape. "Daine, don't you think…"

"…there are more important things?" The girl's voice finished sarcastically. "What if that is the point? It seems far too neat to me, that he forgot me first and now everything else that happened apart from the one lousy night that he spent with that… that witch!" She drew a shaking breath, and met Alanna's eyes helplessly. "Alanna, ten years is a lot of a person's life! How much more can they take from him before he isn't himself anymore? Before the Numair that we know is gone, and all that's left is the creature she tells him to be?"

Alanna shook her head, mute against the tirade, and then Daine said her last few words and she could hear the girl's heart breaking.

"What if there's no way to bring him back?"


	20. Flirting

"You're going to need to bring him here." Alanna said, "It will make you focus, I guess, and it's the only way we can know for sure."

"Alright," Daine shouldered her pack, ready to leave, and then froze when the knight gave her a long-suffering look. "Oh, what now?"

"What are you planning on doing? Marching in there and kidnapping him?" She demanded. Daine shrugged, looking uncomfortable, and the knight lowered her voice to a hiss. "He hasn't forgotten that he's a powerful mage, Daine! What do you think he'll do if he thinks you're attacking him?"

The girl hesitated, chewing on her lip, and then sat down with an awkward thud. "Then… how on earth can I…?"

Alanna folded her arms and scowled. "Isn't it obvious? Make him want to follow you."

"But how do I… oh gods." Daine blushed bright red and shook her head, almost laughing in sudden embarrassment. "You can't be serious. I can't do that."

"Why not?" The other woman demanded, "You already know what he likes. It should be easy for you to coax him away from his loving wife."

Daine bristled a little at that gybe, and scratched her nose to hide her irritation. "I've really never done that. I hated all those women who flirted with him when he was at court. They seemed so insincere! None of them really cared about Numair, you know, they just wanted to sleep with him."

"Your saintly husband never seemed to object. And it is the Numair from years ago that's trapped in that castle, not the one you married." The knight commented dryly. Daine bit her tongue and pretended to be checking Kit's scales for mites.

"I'm not his type." She muttered. "The women he liked always looked more like… like _her."_

"Then I'll cast a glamour on you."

"No!" Daine burst out, and then reddened at her unconscious objection. "No, I can't bear to think that he would… that another woman would…" She shuddered. "Disguise me from the other courtiers, but make it so he sees me as myself. Let him keep a little dignity, even if he has no idea… " she swallowed and then fell silent, finally whispering. "I'll do it."

The next night, while Alanna scaled the walls of the tower to study the door, Daine flew to a secluded wing of the castle. It was easy enough to slip through the window, even carrying the bundle of clothes, and Daine found a water closet to duck into before she changed back into a human. Cursing at the fiddly shell buttons and endless laces on the dress, she finally managed to dress herself and then, pausing to catch her breath, remembered that there was a comb secreted in a cunning pocket on the bodice.

The dress itself was beautifully cut and fit well, but tasteless enough that Daine felt comfortable wearing it. The soft patches of colour on the blue-grey fabric had reminded her of the way the window had shone different coloured light onto her wedding dress, and she had pointed to the material without hesitation. The seamstress had made it up quickly and finely, but had sneered a little at the unfashionable choice. She commented that the fabric was made by dripping small amounts of leftover dye onto damp cloth, after the expensive fabrics had been fully coloured. It was a miserly technique used so that none of the expensive dye would be wasted at the end of the day.

Daine had made her eyes look rueful as she searched for her purse, and had counted out the payment in small coins as if she were strapped for cash. Really, she knew that if people were looking at her dress they would ignore her face, and despite the glamour which Alanna had cast on her features she was grateful for the distraction.

She waited until the sounds of the banquet were loud before sneaking out of the privy and making her way to the main chamber. As she had hoped, the courtiers were gathering in the same drunken revelry they had indulged in almost every night. They had certainly been hung over since the players had arrived in the mountains. Daine had wondered if the parties would end once the players had left, but it seemed that the Lady did not like to spend her nights alone. She was there, too, sitting on her dais with her headdress askew and a cup in her hand, talking avidly to one of her guards and oblivious to the chaos in the room before her. Smiling, Daine slipped into the crowd.

Numair was a little drunk as well, meandering through the crowd with a cup held absently in one hand. For the most part people were ignoring him, looking deferentially towards him whenever he spoke to them but staying polite enough that he soon ended the awkward conversations and drifted away again. Daine wondered how long he had been allowed to mingle with these people for. He had been locked away in that room for long enough for every local noble to agree to the Lady's deception, but now he had some liberty he looked deeply uncomfortable around the cool, distant people.

No wonder he was drinking, the girl thought sympathetically, and she pushed her way closer. Then, feeling her knees tremble in a sudden surge of panic, she detoured to a table and poured herself a cup of mead. Sipping the warm liquid eased her pounding heartbeat, but she knew she would regret the seeping lassitude the liquor welcomed into her mind.

What if she couldn't do it?

She steeled herself and turned around, and squeaked in surprise as she came face to face with a pair of sharp, curious black eyes. Catching her breath, she choked back a hysterical laugh and dipped down into a curtsey, muttering a respectful greeting. When she straightened up his eyes were dancing, but cautious.

"You're not a thief." He said in a low voice. Daine shook her head, but didn't answer. Playing coy, she raised an eyebrow at him and took a sip from her mead. Numair smiled thinly at her, recognising the game, but grudgingly played along. "An assassin? A mountaineer? An unconventional window inspector?"

She laughed at that, breaking the silence. "What on earth is a window inspector?"

"Someone who inspects windows." He explained, aloof. Daine smiled, but said nothing. After a moment he cleared his throat and downed his own mead, relaxing a little as the sweet liquid took hold. "I thought I'd imagined you."

"No, I'm very real." She told him, and reached for his cup so that her fingers brushed against his own. He blinked and let go of the cup, rubbing his hand absently as she turned to refill it. When she turned back again his eyes had wandered down, and Daine found herself blushing. She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around the curves the dress gave her, and instead planted her hand on one hip and tilted her head to the side. Gods, she felt like a marionette. She hoped she had gotten the coquettish posture right. "Are you done, sir?"

He flushed and looked up into her eyes, fumbling for words. "I was looking at your dress."

"Uh-huh." She pursed her lips and gestured down at the skirt. "It goes all the way to the floor, N… Lord Salydis. Why were you looking there, I wonder?"

He tugged at his nose, and for a moment Daine wanted to laugh. It was ridiculous to see him so awkward, like an ungainly teenager who couldn't control his tipsy eyes. "I feel like I know you." He mumbled.

"Ah, so you decided to ask my breasts if you'd met before?" She made her voice sound irritated, which wasn't difficult. He shouldn't be looking at stranger's bodies like some lecherous cur, how dare he? But… she sighed and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. Of course she didn't mind him looking at her, they had done far more intimate things than look at each other. He wasn't being unfaithful… was he?

She remembered Alanna scowling at her, and stopped her thoughts from whirling. It was completely irrelevant, and she was fretting like a jealous idiot over something that wasn't his fault. Numair, she saw, had blushed furiously red. With a mortified feeling in her stomach, she realised she'd spoken with the same blunt frankness which they had laughingly teased each other with while they lay in one another's arms. As far as Numair knew, a complete stranger had just spoken to him about something even street whores would have raised their eyebrows at.

Horrified, Daine covered her face with her hands and glumly told herself that she had already messed up. She expected him to leave. She was astounded when some strange compulsion made him shake off his embarrassment and smile reassuringly, forgiving her with an ease which seemed quite at odds with his haughtiness.

"I shouldn't have said that." She whispered, almost to herself. He smiled wryly and shook his head.

"It was my fault. You're right, I shouldn't have been looking."

"I don't mind." Daine made a strange gesture, trying to regain her calm but in reality just managing to look flustered. Gods, now he was being gallant, as if she were some silly chit he had to comfort. "I just… I didn't…"

He took a step forward, lowering his voice so that she had to step a little closer. It was a skilful trick, and of course Daine fell for it. As she stepped towards him she noticed an oddness in his eyes, as if she could see the dark emptiness that lurked behind them. It made her shiver.

"Your dress looks like the priestesses' robes in the temple." Numair touched her shoulder softly. "They wear sackcloth, but the light shines through the stained glass windows and adorns them with the colours of the gods."

Daine caught her breath and had to stop herself from reaching out to him. He had remembered! But he had no real memory to pin the image on. He caught the trailing hem of her sleeve and studied it for a moment, looking confused at the strange well of nostalgia the cheap colours had summoned in his fractured mind.

"I'm not a priestess." Daine murmured, moving a tiny bit closer. "Not even close."

He looked up, surprised out of his melancholy, and a small laugh escaped from his lips when he saw the mischievous smile on her face.

"Prove it." He murmured back, his eyes laughing but with a challenge lurking in their depths. He raised her hand to his lips. When he kissed it Daine felt a strange tremor running through her, and knew that he could see the sudden blush in her own cheeks. She pulled her hand away sharply, struggling to draw a breath. He looked confused; Daine felt suddenly, inexplicably, like she wanted to scream.

"Your wife is looking for you," She managed to choke out, and when he turned to look, she fled.


	21. Spy

Arram was gazing thoughtfully out of the window when his wife cleared her throat, distracting him. She made the polite coughing sound emerge with a light, girlish squeak that he found rather grating. Perhaps it was because she usually had a habit of making the passive aggressive sound before she even said his name. Today, it sounded as if she was particularly anxious about something. He didn't really care what it was.

He found his eyes drifting back to the window, where the early morning sun was shining on the sheer stone walls of the castle. He couldn't see any footholds or any strands from a rope ladder, but he hadn't really been searching for them. His eyes had been drawn to the window the moment the servants had opened the shutters, and he was playing a mental game where the girl would peer in through the glass, or smile at him from over the sill before ducking away to hide from the servants' sharp eyes.

He had only spoken to her for five minutes or so, but he imagined that she would enjoy playing that kind of game. Her eyes held a kind of mischief which would have told him that, if he hadn't already been utterly convinced that he knew every nuance of her personality.

"She's a spy." Emma said.

"She is?" Arram blinked, and then belated remembered he was a married man. "Wh… who is?"

The woman was frowning gently, her long fingernails tearing a piece of bread into shreds as she met his eyes. "The woman you were speaking to last night is a spy."

"You had me watched?" He snapped, more to hide his embarrassment than to start an argument. The lady smiled widely, and raised one shoulder in a shrug. The thin silk of her sleeping robe creased and relaxed against her heavy earrings. Even in her night garb she was still coiffed and decked in jewels. Arram privately thought that if he ever actually wanted to touch the woman, her underclothes would be made of solid gold chain link and every mole on her body would be carefully powdered.

The thought made him relax a little, because it was absurd. He had been retreating into his own mind so often now that he was tempted to name the sardonic little voice which narrated his thoughts. Sometimes the voice said things which were so peculiar he wondered how the notions had got into his head.

He dragged his thoughts back to the real world. If Veralidaine was a spy, then Emma didn't seem too worried. She already knew that the girl was an interloper, and yet she hadn't arrested her at the party last night, and she didn't seem particularly worried now. Still, a line lay between her eyes that he had never seen before, and he felt a small shiver of fear at that sign.

"Who does she spy for?" He asked, suddenly feeling very foolish for having spoken so openly to the girl. Emma tilted her head to one side, looking disappointed and pitying.

"Don't you remember? Who else would spy on you?"

Arram's blood ran cold. "Ozorne," he whispered, and then shook his head. "No, no! He's dead, isn't he? So she can't…"

"Dead? Who told you that?" Emma laughed shrilly and covered her mouth with her hand. The man bit back his angry retort and backed away from the window, almost without thinking about it.

"She did." He murmured, almost to himself. A sick feeling of betrayal rose in his stomach, and he sat down heavily. "I believed her."

"She probably knew you would… would be too proud to ask us for the truth." The woman's voice had become cool and soothing, the gentle tones of a master manipulator inventing a story on the fly. Arram was too shaken to pick up on the warning signs, but he shuddered when she touched his shoulder with her hand. It was heavy with rings, and the odd stain of magic which glowed from them hurt his head. He ducked his head down and forced his gift not to mimic the frantic feeling in his heart.

"We thought the emperor would leave you alone after we married." Emma was saying in a smooth voice. "When that spy arrived, you saw through her story in just a few days. You were so clever! You fooled her so completely I think she's half in love with you, the fool. Behind those soft eyes she's a bad liar, you told me that yourself. We've had her watched. You told the men that as long as she doesn't know that we know the truth, she won't do anything… impulsive. She won't act without orders."

Arram picked up a bread roll and sawed it in half with his knife, not looking up as he gouged a sliver of butter from the block and spread it onto the bread. It refused to spread, and the bread crumbled under his heavy hand. In his mind he was replaying every conversation he could remember with the girl. If he had truly tricked her the way that Emma was saying, then perhaps she was used to sneaking into his chambers and being brazen with him.

Perhaps he had even taken advantage of her. She was pretty enough, in an elfin way, and he could have waved away Emma's suspicions with this spying story. She seemed too relaxed around him to be an innocent, and he had to admit that his blood warmed more when he was around the girl than it had ever done around Emma. She had even called him a different name. Lovers sometimes invented playful names around each other, didn't they? He could imagine inventing a name like Numair, especially if they were hiding their trysts from listening ears.

He had remembered touching her before he had pushed her away, hadn't he?

A small ray of hope shone through his troubled thoughts. Perhaps Veralidaine had never been a spy. Maybe he had strayed, invented this insane story to mask the truth, and been punished for his infidelity with the most ironic sickness the gods could invent.

Emma was still talking, her voice sliding into his thoughts like a snake. "While you've been sick I wasn't sure what to do. My men have been intercepting Ozorne's messages to her."

The woman was staring at his bread as if it was her fault it was crumbling. Arram's heart sank. There had been messages, then. Actual proof.

"If even one of the emperor's orders gets through…" She shuddered and her fingers tightened on his shoulder, digging into the skin. "My love, I fear for you."

"Why didn't you tell me before now?" He demanded, raising his head. She recoiled a little from the anger on his face, and then the smile was back.

"I'm happy to protect you, my love."

He shook his head, prying her fingers loose and placing them firmly, but gently, back into her lap. His voice took on a frustrated tone which matched the burning light in his eyes. "You don't understand, Emma! Ozorne is dangerous. The girl probably has other orders, ones that she doesn't need relayed. When she was speaking to me I thought that… I believed that…" he shook his head, unable to explain the aura of absolute trust and honesty the girl had worn like a cloak. Even if she was a bad liar, she had managed to weasel her way into his thoughts and make his blood race in just two short conversations.

Ozorne had to be planning some trick with her, something that would hurt far more than a simple assassination. Gods, and if he had had just a few more minutes with her he probably would have followed her into the abyss with a smile on his face.

Numair. What kind of a word was Numair? It wasn't the kind of gentle name lovers would invent. It sounded more like Old Thak, an invocation or a summons. She could have enchanted him with that word, slipping it into each conversation like a serpent waiting to strike. He dreaded to think of the venom her curse could hold. Ozorne was merciless with his enemies, but he treated his friends like rats in a healer's maze. When he liked them, he would reward them for the strange tricks which he tested on them and their unsuspecting families. When they disappointed him, the tricks would turn into vicious traps and forfeits which left scars. When they betrayed him…

"She's dangerous." Arram said, unconsciously changing the pronoun as his hands curled into fists. Emma looked at him, and her eyes narrowed before her smile returned. This time it was vicious.

"I thought it was best you remembered, my love."

"Yes," The man echoed, and his eyes drifted to the open window and sharpened. Unbidden, a note of angry determination coloured his words. "Now I know. I can protect myself."


	22. Plans

"What do you mean, you couldn't do it?" Alanna shook her head in disbelief. Even her own voice seemed to be ridiculous, with the idiot words she was repeating. "He started flirting with you, so you ran away?"

Daine sighed and kicked her feet into the cool water of the brook. "I know. It sounds so stupid now. I would almost rather he hated me. If he was trying to kill me at least I wouldn't feel like such a…" She smiled wanly at her reflection and then shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Now I know I can't do it, so I guess there's no point in fretting over it. What did you find in the tower?"

"There weren't any more of those charms you mentioned." Alanna said, grudgingly dropping the subject. "I couldn't find a way to get through the door without one. I could feel the power in that room, though. When I held my amber stone it shone so brightly that I had to shield my eyes! There must be something powerful in that room."

"Powerful enough to hurt Numair?" Daine had to ask, although she forced her voice to stay even. The knight cracked her knuckles and nodded grimly.

"It could eat him whole, and you and me for dessert, and it would still have room for more." Her voice was awed. "I've never seen anything like it. I don't know if it's good or evil. The only thing I've seen that comes close is the Dominion Jewel, and even that uses magic from the land. This is… something else." She swallowed and then turned to face Daine, seeing that the girl's skin had paled. "And then I looked away from it, out of the window, and I saw the same kind of light coming from the forest. It was just as strong, and just as strange, and it beat against the light from the tower and stopped it from bleeding into the trees. It was as if two candle flames were fighting over a single wick. One taking its energy from the forest, and one from the castle."

"Or from the people in the castle." Daine finished, looking morose. Then she looked up with sudden interest, her eyes shining. "The forest? You mean the shrine, don't you?"

Alanna looked blank, and then pointed vaguely towards the hills. "The brightest part was about three miles…"

"Yes, yes. But it came from a small building in the middle of the trees, right?"

"How on earth do you know that?"

"Oh, that's where Cieran lives. He's the priest I told you about." Daine looked intrigued. "I didn't know he was fighting anything. He didn't say a word about it to me."

"Daine, that kind of power wouldn't come from a single man." Alanna's voice grew impatient. "We're talking hundreds, even thousands…"

"He's not a man, he's a god." The girl interrupted her, her voice was flat as she shrugged away that small detail, but then grew more excited. "If he's fighting against that magic, then maybe he knows how to stop it! We should ask him."

Alanna stared at her for a long time, and then she cursed softly and stood up. She started pacing around the clearing until Kitten woke up and gave her an annoyed snort, which stopped the redheaded woman in her tracks.

Daine had no idea why the woman was reacting so strangely, but she had heard enough stories about the Lioness to know that she had been some god's plaything when she had been younger. Perhaps she was as tired of bumping into the divine beings as Daine was. Still, Cieran seemed pretty harmless, when he wasn't trying to be terrifying. The girl had only been cowed by his outburst for a few minutes (as she had lied to herself several times). She supposed even her own mother could be terrifying, if she was annoyed enough. Daine secretly daydreamed that Sarra was still mortal enough to enjoy summoning godly wrath whenever Weiryn refused to do the washing up.

"He won't be able to help us." Alanna kicked a branch into the fire and sounded terse. "We'll have to think of something else. Or not. We might have to kidnap Numair after all. I'd almost rather drag him home fighting me than stay in this forest."

"What?" Daine gaped at her. "But… he's a god!"

"Yes, and the thing he's fighting against is just as strong as he is! That means that it must be a god, too!" The knight scowled into the flames. "You may be used to fighting against gods, Daine, but I don't think much of my chances."

The girl looked stubborn. "We'd not be fighting a whole god. Just the little bit of god left over after Cieran's fought the rest. Like a… a…" She looked around for inspiration and caught sight of a bag of trail biscuits. "…a crumb. Cieran eats the evil god-biscuit and we're left with a crumb made of god-ness."

The knight broke into laughter. It was a sudden, violent sound, but it broke the tension which had frozen her face into stubborn stillness. When she stopped laughing she shook her head in disbelief. "I wish Numair was here. He could translate that idea into complicated sounding words so that when I send a message to Jon, he doesn't think we've gone insane."

"You'll do it, then?" Daine looked hopeful. "Do you think it will work?"

"We can only try," Alanna said, rather discouragingly. She started scattering earth over the fire which she had kicked into such a blaze. "Come on, let's find your priest."

They covered the short distance in silence, each caught up in their own thoughts. Daine was wondering if Emma knew that she was alive, or had figured out the trick which her two guests had played on her. It seemed unlikely that the woman would be fooled; after being so jealous of her ex-lover's mistress, the noble lady would have known something was wrong the second a strange woman started talking to Numair. Everyone else had been politely avoiding him, except for her, and no-one would have known who she was. It wouldn't have taken long for Emma to put two and two together and see through the disguise which Alanna had cast.

Daine kicked at the dusty ground and mentally cursed her own foolishness. She had thrown away one of the only advantages they had against the woman because of her own jealous insecurity.

Not that she felt sorry she had done it. There had been nothing but apathy from Numair towards his supposed wife. If he felt any loyalty at all, he would never had flirted with a stranger while Emma sat a few short meters away. Daine smiled and covered the gesture with her hand. There were other things she should be thinking about, but her delight at Numair's unfaithfulness was so ironic that she wanted to laugh.

"If he had been unfaithful to you, you wouldn't be smiling." A soft voice said her thoughts aloud, making her jump. Daine looked up a little guility to see Cieran smiling thinly at her. "Is it his nature to be untrue, or do you think his fidelity is something else the tower has taken from him?"

The girl flushed angrily. "Don't read my thoughts."

"You were thinking them very loudly." The priest drawled, and then he nodded to Alanna. "Greetings, little niece."

The knight bowed back, looking amused at the title. Surely Daine was more of a relative than she was? "The Mother Goddess is your sister?"

"She is, and I can see in your eyes that you are her chosen child. No-one would dare lay claim to this one." He nodded glibly at Daine, who resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. She knew the god's idea of family was based on sworn oaths and champions, not blood. Still, her parents gave her the right to be a little less polite than Alanna (who looked rather uncomfortable, still half bent in a bow).

"You're showing off, Cieran." She said, raising her chin into the air. "Talk like a normal person! I half expect your eyes to start burning when you use your god-voice, and you know I'll throw a bucket of water over your head to put them out."

"That's exactly why you don't have a patron." The god said drily, and then his face broke into an easy smile. "Would you two like some tea?"

They sat down in the garden while the priest busied himself in the small building he used for his home. Alanna looked around curiously, remembering that the last time she had come here the clearing had been completely deserted. Now it was as Daine had described it: a small temple, with beautiful plants around it. The trail had been littered with so many offerings that she had half expected to find a crowd of pilgrims already here, but a gentle peace surrounded them which felt like a soothing balm after the stress of the past few days.

She looked at Daine, who was biting nervously at her fingernails, and offered a silent prayer of thanks to the Mother. She still felt sick to the stomach when she thought about the girl's violent death. She knew that the ploy had to have been Daine's idea; it was far too brutal to come from Numair's subtle mind. Still, as she had tried to explain to the girl, she was shocked that the man had agreed to go along with it. He must have been genuinely scared for Daine to remain in the castle.

"He's an idiot." Daine had said sharply, and that was the end of the conversation.

Cieran brought them the tea, which he had flavoured with rosehips and blackberries, and for a few moments they blew away the steam in awkward silence. Then, in her forthright voice, Daine explained what they knew, and asked the priest if he would help them. He looked at her levelly, and then sat back against the wooden slats of the building and sipped his tea.

"It's not a god." He said gently. "We gods do not fight one another in the mortal realm."

"That's a lie." Alanna said, thinking of the stories George had told her about Kyprioth's ongoing battle with his siblings. Cieran raised an eyebrow.

"It's true enough. His battles are fought through tricks, or through champions like yourself. He makes them into mortal games. The kind of battle you think you saw… god magic against god magic… would lay waste to the realms of man. It is simply not allowed."

"Then it's… a mage? An immortal?" The knight pressed, looking scolded.

"In a way." The priest's eyes flicked towards Daine, who bit her lip. If it was an immortal then she should have known it. But there was no accusation in the man's uncanny eyes. "It's not animal enough for you to control it, child. But it is of your ilk."

"Can I talk to it?" She asked, looking nervous. He shrugged.

"If you can find it!"

"I already know it's in the tower." Daine scowled and folded her arms. "I just can't get into the dratted place. Can you give me one of the keys?"

"I don't make the charms." The old man said, amused. "The lady makes them herself. She keeps them in a locked box in her chambers, and scatters them once a month whispering some nonsense rhymes which she thinks keeps the creature at bay. Of course the words mean nothing, but the charms keep the door shut, at least."

"We broke into that room." Daine sounded suddenly doubtful. "We didn't see a creature."

"I think you surprised it." Cieran hid a chuckle. Daine blushed and looked at her feet. Honestly, the way the god was teasing her you would think that they had stumbled across the secret of this valley like children tripping over a bear trap.

"So we have to break into the castle, break open the box in Emma's bedroom, steal a charm and get you into the tower." Alanna summarised in a flat voice. "It sounds so easy! And that's just so you can talk to it. We don't know if it'll say much more than 'go away'! Isn't there any other way to challenge it?"

"Mistress Emma tried." Cieran sounded sorrowful. "She failed, but she tried. It took her sister. She used to weep so much her offerings were soaked with tears."

Both the mortals froze and found themselves gaping at the priest. He smiled wanly at their expressions. "Did you think you were the first people to beg me for help? Nothing is happening to your friend that hasn't happened to hundreds of other people before him."

"And…" Daine cleared her throat and found that she couldn't meet the god's sharp, unrelenting eyes. "And… and what happened to them? Where are they?"

"I can't tell you that." Standing up, Cieran dusted off his breeches and looked apologetic. "I can only promise you that you will know, and soon. The only real choice you have is how you find out. You can either find the creature… or you can watch as it steals your husband away forever."


	23. Thief

Daine knew that she could have waited until she was sure the room would be deserted. Being able to fly made breaking into guarded chambers laughably easy, and she could have roosted outside and chosen any one of a hundred perfect moments to search through Emma's trinket boxes for a charm. The wildmage certainly had enough magic to bide her time, but her supply of patience was even lower than usual on the morning when she broke into the castle. She paced along the window sills for a while, glowering at the silhouettes when their shadows overlapped as if even a shadow's unconscious intimacy was unforgivable. Then, after a long and rather terse argument about nothing important, the door opened and half of the shadows stormed out of the room. Emma had sulked off with her maids. After a few minutes, Numair's shadow followed her.

Later, Daine would tell Alanna that she thought he had gone to finish up the argument, or apologise – both things that would take a long time. Privately, she recognised the absentminded amble which her husband adopted when he was heading for the privy. It gave her long enough, she lied to herself, and didn't admit that she was secretly hoping he would return quickly and speak to her.

She searched the main room rapidly, closing every drawer as soon as she knew it was empty, and then made her way into the bedroom. She couldn't quite hide a chuckle when she saw that a separate bed had been set up near to the fire. Numair had always hated being cold, after all. She began searching the room with a lighter heart.

Most of the boxes and chests were full of ridiculously expensive clothes and trinkets. One was full of glass jars of oddly coloured ointments, all printed with glossy silk labels which promised youth, vigour and beauty. Daine dipped her fingertip into one of the greasy potions and sniffed at it suspiciously. She gagged and wiped the mess onto the bed curtains: it reeked of sweetened lavender.

Breathing through her mouth to try to clear her nose of the awful smell, she started to close the chest and caught sight of another box, almost hidden from view beneath the larger cosmetics chest. The tiny cube was nailed to the base, not wedged under it as she had first thought. Frowning, Daine ran her fingertips along the smooth wooden surface until she found a rough line. Digging her nail into it, she pulled until a tiny drawer slid smoothly out onto the desk.

There, shining dully against the varnished wood, was a single charm.

"What are you doing here?" A voice demanded. Daine jumped and nearly dropped the box on the floor. She fumbled the charm between her fingers, and swiftly tucked it into her sleeve. It was a sleight of hand that Numair had taught her so she was afraid that he would notice it, but his glaring eyes were fixed on her face.

"I…" She stuttered, and then tried again. "I… I was just…"

"You are a thief!" He stressed the word 'are', as if he had proven himself right. Daine recognised the triumphant glint in his eye, but there was something else there, too. He looked almost frightened. She hesitated, and then squared her shoulders and faced him.

"That's right, I'm a thief. The best thief in the mountains! Where does your lady wife keep those ugly oversized earbobs of hers?"

He scowled and folded his arms. "You wouldn't say that if you really were a thief."

"Hag's bones! You literally just caught me stealing things." She exclaimed, exasperated. He started to make some quick retort, and then made a scoffing sound and shook his head. Pointing at the dressing table, he showed her a messy heap of tangled necklaces and jewelled hairpins.

"You're not the most observant 'best thief in the world'. Emma doesn't exactly hide her jewels away." He said snidely. Daine pretended to yawn.

"I'm too good to tidy up after the silly old hag. I have to take some pride in my work." She made a great show of putting the tiny chest back into the cabinet. "I'm fair sure there's something far more valuable hidden around here. Are you going to tell me where it is?"

Numair made a mocking sound. "You want me to help you rob me?"

"Of course not! I want to rob your wife."

"And why do you think I would help you?" He repeated tersely.

"Why wouldn't you? You would have taken far more from me last night, if I had let your eyes wander a little further. I figured since her ladyship doesn't even keep a good hold of her husband, she won't mind too much if I take some of her other toys."

He flushed a deep red and took a step closer. Daine could feel the air starting to grow dense around her, and she knew that he was genuinely angry. It was his gift pulling magic from the air around him into his body. She forced herself to stand her ground, praying to the gods that the creature hadn't managed to leech away the self control which usually stopped Numair from using his magic except as a last resort.

The power drained from the air into his body, and for a second he wavered. Daine caught sight of an odd haziness in his expression which passed like a cloud across the face of the sun. It made his eyes narrow, and for a few breaths he looked at her with a puzzled expression. Then he blinked, and she wondered if she had been mistaken. For a moment, it was almost as if he had recognised her. Then the anger was back, and she realised that while she had been thinking he had closed the distance between them.

"I never touched you. I would rather bed a snake." He growled. "I've been warned about your lying tongue."

"I bet." She muttered, imagining Emma's gleeful lies. Then she met his eyes. She knew she only had one chance to cool off his fury before he snapped, but she couldn't fight off a surge of bitterness which made her words crude and sharp. "I'm fair sure the snake wouldn't tell Emma about that birthmark on your back, or how much you love slipping into dark corners and risking the thrill of being caught…"

"Stop it!" His face changed from red to white, and he recoiled as if she'd hit him. Defying her aching throat, the girl forced herself to laugh mockingly in his face. She wanted to slap herself, or him. She couldn't quite decide which one of them deserved it more.

"You really don't remember anything, do you?" She turned on her heel and started making for the open window, hoping her jeering words would keep him frozen into place for long enough to let her escape. "You're just her creature. I'll let you keep the jewels, you poor thing. Good luck bedding your snake."

"Stop." He said, and his voice rang with power. Daine gasped and nearly toppled forward when both of her legs suddenly grew ice cold and numb. Finding her balance, she twisted her head around to glare at him.

"Don't be an ass, Numair."

His scowl deepened and he snapped his fingers, watching her stumble to the floor and then paralyzing her a second time with another angry gesture. "If you say that word again I swear I will freeze your heart."

She laughed and dragged herself around with her arms, shoving her lifeless legs into a sitting position. "You would never do that."

"How do you know?"

"You've just convinced my mind that my feet have fallen asleep. It's an illusion, that's all. To actually kill me you'd have to use dark magic – Old Thak, I mean. Words of raw power."

He folded his arms again, but she could hear the doubt in the false bravado he summoned. "Words that I know very well, girl."

"My name is Daine, not girl. You've only used those words three times. You only used them because you were desperate. They helped you escape from Carthak. You used one on the river to call a flash flood so that they'd think you'd drowned. You used one on the sea to fill the sails of your ship, and you used one when you docked to cloak your aura from the eyes of anyone who was trying to hunt you down. Do you want me to tell you what those three words were, Arram, or will you finally believe that I know you?"

"You're a spy." He said curtly. She froze, and he smiled at her horrified expression and nodded. "Ozorne learned those words from the same masters I did. He could easily have worked out what I did, and told it to you. And I'm sure he taught you that… whatever that word is that you keep parroting at me. What does 'Numair' do?"

"Right now? Drives me insane." She muttered, looking at her feet. He made an annoyed noise and started pacing across the room. Daine thought rapidly. As long as his spell held out she was trapped, but at least he was actually asking her questions.

"What do we do now?" She asked, making her voice a little sarcastic. "I mean, you have a strange young woman hiding in your bedroom. I suppose next I'll be telling your wife about how you made my knees go weak."

He snorted a humourless laugh and tried to look fierce. "You can tell my guards anything you like."

"I'll break this pathetic spell long before you can fetch those lazy slobs." She boasted, and made a great show of meditating and circling her palms pointlessly over her feet.

She opened her eye a crack to see that, as she had hoped, Numair was looking around the room for something to tie her up with. He had learned the hard way not to underestimate other mages, and she knew from the battles they had fought together that he mistrusted binding spells. He could break through them so easily that he found it hard to believe other mages struggled with them. Daine hid a smile as she closed her eyes again, and then squeaked in surprise when she felt his hands closing around her waist.

Hauling her to her feet, Numair picked her up and dumped her at the end of the bed, using the curtain tie to lash her to the bedpost. She obligingly held her hands out in front of her so he could tie a knot. The man scowled at her helpful expression and dragged them behind her back instead.

"I suppose that, next," He said, lashing a coil tightly around her wrists, "You'll be telling me this isn't the first time I've tied you to a bed."

"No," She said thoughtfully, "You were never really into that kind of thing."

"That's the first thing you've said that I believe." Numair twisted the ends of the rope one last time around her ankles and then stood back, taking back the magic from the spell and wondering if the girl even realised that she was caught. She looked peacefully back at him, for all the world like an adult dog affectionately watching a puppy trying to bite its own tail. He felt suddenly foolish, standing angrily over her with the ends of a gilded curtain cord in his hands. The girl honestly looked like she was playing along with being captured to humour him.

"Why did Ozorne send you?" He asked, as irked by her strangeness as he was by her idiotic lies. Daine tried to shrug, remembered that her hands were tied, and raised her eyebrows instead. It looked ridiculous.

"He couldn't have sent me." She said. "Ask anyone outside of Emma's lands and they'll tell you that Ozorne died years ago. You're too clever to let that witch to trick you with such a pathetic lie."

"I'm not a complete fool. Naturally, I asked other people. They all confirm her story."

"Yes, that is strange." The girl chewed on her lip and looked innocently up at him. "I wonder how much I would have to pay them, for them to tell you my version."

"I would expect tricks from a spy." He retorted, stung. She rolled her eyes.

"That's the first clever thing you've said today. Why don't you expect tricks from everyone? You don't know who to trust. Emma could be more dangerous than I am. After all, she's the one who has you locked up in a castle, arguing with her, drinking yourself to sleep and fair vexed with all these questions. I didn't do anything to hurt you. I didn't even fight back when you tied these stupid ropes around me. The worst thing I hurt was your pride, and I only did that because I knew it'd break through your idiotic know-it-all mood."

He made a frustrated gesture and threw the rope end onto the fire. "You really are the most insulting person in the world."

"I love you too." She said, laughed bitterly when he flinched, and then nodded at the door. "Are you going to fetch these guards, then, or have you forgotten how to walk as well as how to think?"

He only turned around for a few seconds, but it was enough. As he was shouting out for the guards, the girl shrank down and pulled her hands and feet out of the ropes. It took her precious time to check that the charm was still in her sleeve, and then she ran.

As she bolted for the window and swung herself out onto the ledge, she heard a furious shout. A blistering wave of pure energy made the ledge shake, and she gasped and sank cat claws into it, desperately trying to hold on. Another tremor burned her hands, and she slid another few feet down the wall.

Gods, she had done the most idiotic thing possible. She had tried to run away. Stupid, stupid girl! She pressed her forehead to the cliff, panting in fear, and mentally cursed herself. The second she had run, he had thought she was guilty. Before then he hadn't been sure, but now…

… he thought she was Ozorne's spy. An assassin. She had seen the fear in his eyes; she knew the merciless darkness which followed it far too well.

A third thud of power shuddered into the wall, and her ears rang with the feeling of pure energy being sucked from the air. There was a moment's pause, and then the entire wall shook and warped. Flat stones boiled and grew ragged, sharp edges which rolled and sliced towards her bare hands. She shoved herself away from them, climbing as quickly as she could, but the stone blades screeched and grumbled their way towards her faster than she could move.

She swung desperately across the building to a window ledge, sinking claws into the varnished timber and hanging there, nearly sobbing as the structure trembled and loosened her grip. Then, suddenly, the stone stopped boiling and the ebbing heaviness in the air eased.

Daine held her breath, feeling the slow warmth of relief ebbing into her aching muscles, when her hand started to feel too hot. She looked up and saw that the edge of the window frame was smouldering, and a great chunk of the wall around it was sagging outwards. She barely had time to huddle under the ledge before there was another burst of power and a deafening roar of sound. The wall burst outwards, rocks crashing down like hailstones and mortar dripping after them like molten lava.

Daine shoved her face against the stone wall so that her frightened cry was muffled. He had thought she was hiding under the other window. If she had gone left instead of right, she would have been scorched or smashed to pieces against the rocks below.

She made the mistake of looking down. "Gods!" She yelped, and then bit her own lip so hard to bled.

Her arms trembled from hanging on to the rocks, and she scrabbled desperately for a foothold. Her heart was thudding so hard in her chest that she was afraid to fall, not knowing if she would be able to focus her magic quickly enough to grow wings. The fact that she would also drop the charm seemed less important now, when she was clinging to a crumbling cliff face by her fingertips.

That was the first time that she realised how dangerous Numair had become.

An odd tickling feeling brushed over her fingertips, and she nearly shrieked until she realised that it was just a frightened spider scurrying away from the ruins of its web. She had thought it was another spell. What would he do next? She supposed a tickling spell would make her lose her grip just as easily as another explosion. He thought she had been thrown down the cliff, though. He would have needed to scry to see that she was there.

The ebb of magic in the air pressed against her, and she fought to draw breath. If he saw her…

The raw press of power in the air suddenly drew back, and she heard footsteps running into the room. The guards had arrived. As silent as an owl, she held her breath and started climbing down the cliff.

The stone was freezing, and her arms trembled so much that Daine could see the muscles shaking under her sleeves. The charm pressed against her arm, and she remembered the strange confused expression on Numair's face when he had called on his power. That memory warmed her, and she reached out for the next handhold with new strength. He was still in there. She could still get him back.

If, of course, he didn't kill her first.


End file.
